THE CYPHERNOMICON
1. Introduction
1.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
1.2. Foreword
- The Cypherpunks have existed since September, 1992. In that
time, a vast amount has been written on cryptography, key
escrow, Clipper, the Net, the Information Superhighway, cyber
terrorists, and crypto anarchy. We have found ourselves (or
_placed_ ourselves) at the center of the storm.
- This FAQ may help to fill in some gaps about what we're
about, what motivates us, and where we're going. And maybe
some useful knowledge on crypto, remailers, anonymity,
digital cash, and other interesting things.
+ The Basic Issues
+ Great Divide: privacy vs. compliance with laws
+ free speech and privacy, even if means some criminals
cannot be caught (a stand the U.S. Constitution was
strongly in favor of, at one time)
- a man's home is his castle...the essence of the Magna
Carta systems...rights of the individual to be secure
from random searches
+ or invasive tactics to catch criminals, regulate
behavior, and control the population
- the legitimate needs to enforce laws, to respond to
situations
+ this parallels the issue of self-protection vs.
protection by law and police
- as seen in the gun debate
- crypto = guns in the sense of being an individual's
preemptive protection
- past the point of no return
- Strong crypto as building material for a new age
+ Transnationalism and Increased Degrees of Freedom
- governments can't hope to control movements and
communications of citizens; borders are transparent
+ Not all list members share all views
- This is not "the Official Cypherpunks FAQ." No such thing
can exist. This is the FAQ I wanted written. Views
expressed are my own, with as much input from others, as
much consensus, as I can manage. If you want a radically
different FAQ, write it yourself. If you don't like this
FAQ, don't read it. And tell your friends not to read it.
But don't bog down my mailbox, or the 500 others on the
list, with messages about how you would have worded Section
12.4.7.2 slightly differently, or how Section 6.9.12 does
not fully reflect your views. For obvious reasons.
- All FAQs are the products of a primary author, sometimes of
a committee. For this FAQ, I am the sole author. At least
of the version you are reading now. Future versions may
have more input from others, though this makes me nervous
(I favor new authors writing their own stuff, or using
hypertext links, rather than taking my basic writing and
attaching their name to it--it is true that I include the
quotes of many folks here, but I do so by explicitly
quoting them in the chunk they wrote....it will be tough
for later authors to clearly mark what Tim May wrote
without excessively cluttering the text. The revisionist's
dilemma.
- The list has a lot of radical libertarians, some anarcho-
capitalists, and even a few socialists
- Mostly computer-related folks, as might be expected. (There
are some political scientists, classical scholars, etc.
Even a few current or ex-lawyers.)
+ Do I Speak for Others?
- As I said, no. But sometimes I make claims about what
"most" list members believe, what "many" believe, or what
"some" believe.
- "Most" is my best judgment of what the majority believe,
at least the vocal majority in Cypherpunks discussions
(at the physical meetings, parties, etc.) and on the
List. "Many" means fewer, and "some" fewer still. "A few"
will mean a distinct minority. Note that this is from the
last 18 months of activity (so don't send in
clarifications now to try to "sway the vote").
- In particular, some members may be quite uncomfortable
being described as anarchists, crypto anarchists, money
launderers, etc.
+ My comments won't please everyone
- on nearly every point ever presented, some have disagreed
- feuds, battles, flames, idee fixes
- on issues ranging from gun control to Dolphin Encrypt to
various pet theories held dearly
- Someone once made a mundane joke about pseudonyms being
like multiple personality disorder--and a flame came back
saying: "That's not funny. I am MPD and my SO is MPD.
Please stop immediately!"
- can't be helped....can't present all sides to all arguments
+ Focus of this FAQ is U.S.-centric, for various reasons
- most on list are in U.S., and I am in U.S.
- NSA and crypto community is largely centered in the U.S.,
with some strong European activities
- U.S. law is likely to influence overseas law
+ We are at a fork in the road, a Great Divide
- Surveillance vs. Freedom
- nothing in the middle...either strong crypto and privacy is
strongly limited, or the things I describe here will be
done by some people....hence the "tipping factor" applies
(point of no return, horses out of the barn)
+ I make no claim to speaking "for the group." If you're
offended, write your own FAQ. My focus on things loosely
called "crypto anarchy" is just that: my _focus_. This focus
naturally percolates over into something like this FAQ, just
as someone primarily interested in the mechanics of PGP would
devote more space to PGP issues than I have.
- Gary Jeffers, for example, devotes most of his "CEB" to
issues surrounding PGP.
+ Will leave out some of the highly detailed items...
- Clipper, LEAF, escrow, Denning, etc.
- a myriad of encryption programs, bulk ciphers, variants on
PGP, etc. Some of these I've listed...others I've had to
throw my hands over and just ignore. (Keeping track of
zillions of versions for dozens of platforms...)
- easy to get lost in the details, buried in the bullshit
1.3. Motivations
1.3.1. With so much material available, why another FAQ?
1.3.2. No convenient access to archives of the list....and who could
read 50 MB of stuff anyway?
1.3.3. Why not Web? (Mosaic, Http, URL, etc.)
- Why not a navigable Web document?
- This is becoming trendy. Lots of URLs are included here, in
fact. But making all documents into Web documents has
downsides.
+ Reasons why not:
- No easy access for me.
- Many others also lack access. Text still rules.
- Not at all clear that a collection of hundreds of
fragments is useful
- I like the structured editors available on my Mac
(specifically, MORE, an outline editor)
-
1.3.4. What the Essential Points Are
- It's easy to lose track of what the core issues are, what
the really important points are. In a FAQ like this, a vast
amount of "cruft" is presented, that is, a vast amount of
miscellaneous, tangential, and epiphenomenal material.
Names of PGP versions, variants on steganograhy, and other
such stuff, all of which will change over the next few
months and years.
+ And yet that's partly what a FAQ is for. The key is just
not to lose track of the key ideas. I've mentioned what I
think are the important ideas many times. To wit:
- that many approaches to crypto exist
- that governments essentially cannot stop most of these
approaches, short of establishing a police state (and
probably not even then)
- core issues of identity, authentication, pseudonyms,
reputations, etc.
1.4. Who Should Read This
1.4.1. "Should I read this?"
- Yes, reading this will point you toward other sources of
information, will answer the most commonly asked questions,
and will (hopefully) head off the reappearance of the same
tired themes every few months.
- Use a search tool if you have one. Grep for the things that
interest you, etc. The granularity of this FAQ does not
lend itself to Web conversion, at least not with present
tools.
+ What _Won't_ Be Covered Here
+ basic cryptography
+ many good texts, FAQs, etc., written by full-time
cryptologists and educators
- in particular, some of the ideas are not simple, and
take several pages of well-written text to get the
point across
- not the focus of this FAQ
- basic political rants
1.5. Comments on Style and Thoroughness
1.5.1. "Why is this FAQ not in Mosaic form?"
- because the author (tcmay, as of 7/94) does not have Mosaic
access, and even if did, would not necessarily....
- linear text is still fine for some things...can be read on
all platforms, can be printed out, and can be searched with
standard grep and similar tools
1.5.2. "Why the mix of styles?"
+ There are three main types of styles here:
- Standard prose sections, explaining some point or listing
things. Mini-essays, like most posts to Cypherpunks.
+ Short, outline-style comments
- that I didn't have time or willpower to expand into
prose format
- that work best in outline format anyway
- like this
+ Quotes from others
- Cypherpunks are a bright group. A lot of clever things
have been said in the 600 days x 40 posts/day = 24,000
posts, and I am trying to use what I can.
+ Sadly, only a tiny fraction can be used
- because I simply cannot _read_ even a fraction of
these posts over again (though I've only saved
several thousand of the posts)
- and because including too many of these posts would
simply make the FAQ too long (it's still too long, I
suppose)
- I hope you can handle the changes in tone of voice, in
styles, and even in formats. It'll just too much time to
make it all read uniformly.
1.5.3. Despite the length of this thing, a vast amount of stuff is
missing. There have been hundreds of incisive analyses by
Cypherpunks, dozens of survey articles on Clipper, and
thousands of clever remarks. Alas, only a few of them here.
- And with 25 or more books on the Internet, hundreds of FAQs
and URLs, it's clear that we're all drowning in a sea of
information about the Net.
- Ironically, good old-fashioned books have a lot more
relevant and timeless information.
1.5.4. Caveats on the completeness or accuracy of this FAQ
+ not all points are fully fleshed out...the outline nature
means that nearly all points could be further added-to,
subdivided, taxonomized, and generally fleshed-out with
more points, counterpoints, examples
- like a giant tree...branches, leaves, tangled hierarchies
+ It is inevitable that conflicting points will be made in a
document of this size
- views change, but don't get corrected in all places
- different contexts lead to different viewpoints
- simple failure by me to be fully consistent
- and many points raised here would, if put into an essay
for the Cypherpunks list, generate comments, rebuttals,
debate, and even acrimony....I cannot expect to have all
sides represented fully, especially as the issues are
often murky, unresolved, in dispute, and generally
controversial
- inconsistencies in the points here in this FAQ
1.6. Corrections and Elaborations
+ "How to handle corrections or clarifications?"
- While I have done my best to ensure accuracy, errors will
no doubt exist. And as anyone can see from reading the
Cypherpunks list, nearly *any* statement made about any
subject can produce a flurry of rebuttals, caveats,
expansions, and whatnot. Some subjects, such as the nature
of money, the role of Cypherpunks, and the role of
reputations, produce dozens of differing opinions every
time they come up!
- So, it is not likely that my points here will be any
different. Fortunately, the sheer number of points here
means that not every one of them will be disagreed with.
But the math is pretty clear: if every reader finds even
one thing to disagree with and then posts his rebuttal or
elaboration....disaster! (Especially if some people can't
trim quotes properly and end up including a big chunk of
text.)
+ Recommendations
- Send corrections of _fact_ to me
- If you disagree with my opinion, and you think you can
change my mind, or cause me to include your opinion as an
elaboration or as a dissenting view, then send it. If
your point requires long debate or is a deep
disagreement, then I doubt I have the time or energy to
debate. If you want your views heard, write your own FAQ!
- Ultimately, send what you want. But I of course will
evaluate comments and apply a reputation-based filter to
the traffic. Those who send me concise, well-reasoned
corrections or clarifications are likelier to be listened
to than those who barrage me with minor clarifications
and elaborations.
- In short, this is not a group project. The "stone soup
FAQ" is not what this is.
+ More information
- Please don't send me e-mail asking for more information
on a particular topic--I just can't handle custom
research. This FAQ is long enough, and the Glossary at
the end contains additional information, so that I cannot
expand upon these topics (unless there is a general
debate on the list). In other words, don't assume this
FAQ is an entry point into a larger data base I will
generate. I hate to sound so blunt, but I've seen the
requests that come in every time I write a fairly long
article.
+ Tips on feedback
- Comments about writing style, of the form "I would have
written it _this_ way," are especially unwelcome.
+ Credit issues
- inevitable that omissions or collisions will occur
- ideas have many fathers
- some ideas have been "in the air" for many years
+ slogans are especially problematic
- "They can have my...."...I credit Barlow with this, but
I've heard others use it independently (I think; at least
I used it before hearing Barlow used it)
- "If crypto is outlawed, only outlaws will have crypto"
- "Big Brother Inside"
- if something really bothers you, send me a note
1.7. Acknowledgements
1.7.1. Acknowledgements
- My chief thanks go to the several hundred active
Cypherpunks posters, past and present.
- All rights reserved. Copyright Timothy C. May. Don't try to
sell this or incorporate it into anything that is sold.
Quoting brief sections is "fair use"...quoting long
sections is not.
1.8. Ideas and Notes (not to be printed)
1.8.1. Graphics for cover
- two blocks...plaintext to cryptotext
- Cypherpunks FAQ
- compiled by Timothy C. May, tcmay@netcom.com
- with help from many Cypherpunks
- with material from other sources
-
1.8.2. "So don't ask"
1.9. Things are moving quickly in crypto and crypto policy
1.9.1. hard to keep this FAQ current, as info changes
1.9.2. PGP in state of flux
1.9.3. new versions of tools coming constantly
1.9.4. And the whole Clipper thing has been turned on its head
recently by the Administration's backing off...lots of points
already made here are now rendered moot and are primarily of
historical interest only.
- Gore's letter to Cantwell
- Whit Diffie described a conference on key escrow systems in
Karlsruhe, Germany, which seemed to contain new ideas
- TIS? (can't use this info?)
1.10. Notes: The Cyphernomicon: the CypherFAQ and More
1.10.1. 2.3.1. "The Book of Encyphered Names"
- Ibn al-Taz Khallikak, the Pine Barrens Horror.
- Liber Grimoiris....Cifur???
- spreading from the Sumerian sands, through the gate of
Ishtar, to the back alleys of Damascus, tempered with the
blood of Westerners
- Keys of Solomon, Kool John Dee and the Rapping Cryps Gone
to Croatan
- Peter Krypotkin, the Russian crypto anarchist
- Twenty-nine Primes, California
1.10.2. 2.3.2. THE CYPHERNOMICON: a Cypherpunk FAQ and More---
Version 0.666
1.10.3. 1994-09-01, Copyright Timothy C. May, tcmay@netcom.com
1.10.4.
- Written and compiled by Tim May, except as noted by
credits. (Influenced by years of good posts on the
Cypherpunks list.) Permission is granted to post and
distribute this document in an unaltered and complete
state, for non-profit and educational purposes only.
Reasonable quoting under "fair use" provisions is
permitted. See the detailed disclaimer of responsibilities
and liabilities in the Introduction chapter.
2. MFAQ--Most Frequently Asked Questions
2.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
2.2. SUMMARY: MFAQ--Most Frequently Asked Questions
2.2.1. Main Points
- These are the main questions that keep coming up. Not
necessarily the most basic question, just the ones that get
asked a lot. What most FAQs are.
2.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
2.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
- newcomers to crypto should buy Bruce Schneier's "Applied
Cryptography"...it will save many hours worth of
unnecessary questions and clueless remarks about
cryptography.
- the various FAQs publishe in the newsroups (like sci.crypt,
alt.security.pgp) are very helpful. (also at rtfm.mit.edu)
2.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
- I wasn't sure what to include here in the MFAQ--perhaps
people can make suggestions of other things to include.
- My advice is that if something interests you, use your
editing/searching tools to find the same topic in the main
section. Usually (but not always) there's more material in
the main chapters than here in the MFAQ.
2.3. "What's the 'Big Picture'?"
2.3.1. Strong crypto is here. It is widely available.
2.3.2. It implies many changes in the way the world works. Private
channels between parties who have never met and who never
will meet are possible. Totally anonymous, unlinkable,
untraceable communications and exchanges are possible.
2.3.3. Transactions can only be *voluntary*, since the parties are
untraceable and unknown and can withdraw at any time. This
has profound implications for the conventional approach of
using the threat of force, directed against parties by
governments or by others. In particular, threats of force
will fail.
2.3.4. What emerges from this is unclear, but I think it will be a
form of anarcho-capitalist market system I call "crypto
anarchy." (Voluntary communications only, with no third
parties butting in.)
2.4. Organizational
2.4.1. "How do I get on--and off--the Cypherpunks list?"
- Send a message to "cypherpunks-request@toad.com"
- Any auto-processed commands?
- don't send requests to the list as a whole....this will
mark you as "clueless"
2.4.2. "Why does the Cypherpunks list sometimes go down, or lose the
subscription list?"
- The host machine, toad.com, owned by John Gilmore, has had
the usual problems such machines have: overloading,
shortages of disk space, software upgrades, etc. Hugh
Daniel has done an admirable job of keeping it in good
shape, but problems do occur.
- Think of it as warning that lists and communication systems
remain somewhat fragile....a lesson for what is needed to
make digital money more robust and trustable.
- There is no paid staff, no hardware budget for
improvements. The work done is strictly voluntarily.
2.4.3. "If I've just joined the Cypherpunks list, what should I do?"
- Read for a while. Things will become clearer, themes will
emerge, and certain questions will be answered. This is
good advice for any group or list, and is especially so for
a list with 500 or more people on it. (We hit 700+ at one
point, then a couple of list outages knocked the number
down a bit.)
- Read the references mentioned here, if you can. The
sci.crypt FAQ should be read. And purchase Bruce Schneier's
"Applied Cryptography" the first chance you get.
- Join in on things that interest you, but don't make a fool
of yourself. Reputations matter, and you may come to regret
having come across as a tedious fool in your first weeks on
the list. (If you're a tedious fool after the first few
weeks, that may just be your nature, of course.)
- Avoid ranting and raving on unrelated topics, such as
abortion (pro or con), guns (pro or con), etc. The usual
topics that usually generate a lot of heat and not much
light. (Yes, most of us have strong views on these and
other topics, and, yes, we sometimes let our views creep
into discussions. There's no denying that certain
resonances exist. I'm just urging caution.)
2.4.4. "I'm swamped by the list volume; what can I do?"
- This is a natural reaction. Nobody can follow it all; I
spend entirely too many hours a day reading the list, and I
certainly can't follow it all. Pick areas of expertise and
then follow them and ignore the rest. After all, not seeing
things on the list can be no worse than not even being
subscribed to the list!
- Hit the "delete" key quickly
- find someone who will digest it for you (Eric Hughes has
repeatedly said anyone can retransmit the list this way;
Hal Finney has offered an encrypted list)
+ Better mailers may help. Some people have used mail-to-news
systems and then read the list as a local newsgroup, with
threads.
- I have Eudora, which supports off-line reading and
sorting features, but I generally end up reading with an
online mail program (elm).
- The mailing list may someday be switched over to a
newsgroup, a la "alt.cypherpunks." (This may affect some
people whose sites do not carry alt groups.)
2.4.5. "It's very easy to get lost in the morass of detail here. Are
there any ways to track what's *really* important?"
- First, a lot of the stuff posted in the Usenet newsgroups,
and on the Cypherpunks list, is peripheral stuff,
epiphenomenal cruft that will blow away in the first strong
breeze. Grungy details about PGP shells, about RSA
encryption speeds, about NSA supercomputers. There's just
no reason for people to worry about "weak IDEA keys" when
so many more pressing matters exist. (Let the experts
worry.) Little of this makes any real difference, just as
little of the stuff in daily newspapers is memorable or
deserves to be memorable.
- Second, "read the sources." Read "1984," "The Shockwave
Rider," "Atlas Shrugged," "True Names." Read the Chaum
article on making Big Brother obsolete (October 1985,
"Communications of the ACM").
- Third, don't lose sight of the core values: privacy,
technological solutions over legal solutions, avoiding
taxation, bypassing laws, etc. (Not everyone will agree
with all of these points.)
- Fourth, don't drown in the detail. Pick some areas of
interest and follow _them_. You may not need to know the
inner workings of DES or all the switches on PGP to make
contributions in other areas. (In fact, you surely don't.)
2.4.6. "Who are the Cypherpunks?"
- A mix of about 500-700
+ Can find out who by sending message to majordomo@toad.com
with the message body text "who cypherpunks" (no quotes, of
course).
- Is this a privacy flaw? Maybe.
- Lots of students (they have the time, the Internet
accounts). Lots of computer science/programming folks. Lots
of libertarians.
- quote from Wired article, and from "Whole Earth Review"
2.4.7. "Who runs the Cypherpunks?"
- Nobody. There's no formal "leadership." No ruler = no head
= an arch = anarchy. (Look up the etymology of anarchy.)
- However, the mailing list currently resides on a physical
machine, and this machine creates some nexus of control,
much like having a party at someon'e house. The list
administrator is currently Eric Hughes (and has been since
the beginning). He is helped by Hugh Daniel, who often does
maintenance of the toad.com, and by John Gilmore, who owns
the toad.com machine and account.
- In an extreme situation of abuse or neverending ranting,
these folks could kick someone off the list and block them
from resubscribing via majordomo. (I presume they could--
it's never happened.)
- To emphasize: nobody's ever been kicked off the list, so
far as I know. Not even Detweiler...he asked to be removed
(when the list subscribes were done manually).
- As to who sets policy, there is no policy! No charter, no
agenda, no action items. Just what people want to work on
themselves. Which is all that can be expected. (Some people
get frustrated at this lack of consensus, and they
sometimes start flaming and ranting about "Cypherpunks
never do anything," but this lack of consensus is to be
expected. Nobody's being paid, nobody's got hiring and
firing authority, so any work that gets done has to be
voluntary. Some volunteer groups are more organized than we
are, but there are other factors that make this more
possible for them than it is for us. C'est la vie.)
- Those who get heard on the mailing list, or in the physical
meetings, are those who write articles that people find
interesting or who say things of note. Sounds fair to me.
2.4.8. "Why don't the issues that interest me get discussed?"
- Maybe they already have been--several times. Many newcomers
are often chagrined to find arcane topics being discussed,
with little discussion of "the basics."
- This is hardly surprising....people get over the "basics"
after a few months and want to move on to more exciting (to
them) topics. All lists are like this.
- In any case, after you've read the list for a while--maybe
several weeks--go ahead and ask away. Making your topic
fresher may generate more responses than, say, asking
what's wrong with Clipper. (A truly overworked topic,
naturally.)
2.4.9. "How did the Cypherpunks group get started?"
2.4.10. "Where did the name 'Cypherpunks' come from?"
+ Jude Milhon, aka St. Jude, then an editor at "Mondo 2000,"
was at the earliest meetings...she quipped "You guys are
just a bunch of cypherpunks." The name was adopted
immediately.
- The 'cyberpunk' genre of science fiction often deals with
issues of cyberspace and computer security ("ice"), so
the link is natural. A point of confusion is that
cyberpunks are popularly thought of as, well, as "punks,"
while many Cyberpunks are frequently libertarians and
anarchists of various stripes. In my view, the two are
not in conflict.
- Some, however, would prefer a more staid name. The U.K.
branch calls itself the "U.K. Crypto Privacy
Association." However, the advantages of the
name are clear. For one thing, many people are bored by
staid names. For another, it gets us noticed by
journalists and others.
-
- We are actually not very "punkish" at all. About as punkish
as most of our cyberpunk cousins are, which is to say, not
very.
+ the name
- Crypto Cabal (this before the sci.crypt FAQ folks
appeared, I think), Crypto Liberation Front, other names
- not everybody likes the name...such is life
2.4.11. "Why doesn't the Cypherpunks group have announced goals,
ideologies, and plans?"
- The short answer: we're just a mailing list, a loose
association of folks interested in similar things
- no budget, no voting, no leadership (except the "leadership
of the soapbox")
- How could such a consensus emerge? The usual approach is
for an elected group (or a group that seized power) to
write the charter and goals, to push their agenda. Such is
not the case here.
- Is this FAQ a de facto statement of goals? Not if I can
help it, to be honest. Several people before me planned
some sort of FAQ, and had they completed them, I certainly
would not have felt they were speaking for me or for the
group. To be consistent, then, I cannot have others think
this way about _this_ FAQ!
2.4.12. "What have the Cypherpunks actually done?"
- spread of crypto: Cypherpunks have helped
(PGP)...publicity, an alternative forum to sci.crypt (in
many ways, better...better S/N ratio, more polite)
- Wired, Whole Earth Review, NY Times, articles
- remailers, encrypted remailers
+ The Cypherpunk- and Julf/Kleinpaste-style remailers were
both written very quickly, in just days
- Eric Hughes wrote the first Cypherpunks remailer in a
weekend, and he spent the first day of that weekend
learning enough Perl to do the job.
+ Karl Kleinpaste wrote the code that eventually turned
into Julf's remailer (added to since, of course) in a
similarly short time:
- "My original anon server, for godiva.nectar.cs.cmu.edu
2 years ago, was written in a few hours one bored
afternoon. It
wasn't as featureful as it ended up being, but it was
"complete" for
its initial goals, and bug-free."
[Karl_Kleinpaste@cs.cmu.edu, alt.privacy.anon-server,
1994-09-01]
- That other interesting ideas, such as digital cash, have
not yet really emerged and gained use even after years of
active discussion, is an interesting contrast to this
rapid deployment of remailers. (The text-based nature of
both straight encryption/signing and of remailing is
semantically simpler to understand and then use than are
things like digital cash, DC-nets, and other crypto
protocols.)
- ideas for Perl scripts, mail handlers
- general discussion, with folks of several political
persuasions
- concepts: pools, Information Liberation Front, BlackNet
-
2.4.13. "How Can I Learn About Crypto and Cypherpunks Info?"
2.4.14. "Why is there sometimes disdain for the enthusiasm and
proposals of newcomers?"
- None of us is perfect, so we sometimes are impatient with
newcomers. Also, the comments seen tend to be issues of
disagreement--as in all lists and newsgroups (agreement is
so boring).
- But many newcomers also have failed to do the basic reading
that many of us did literally _years_ before joining this
list. Cryptology is a fairly technical subject, and one can
no more jump in and expect to be taken seriously without
any preparation than in any other technical field.
- Finally, many of us have answered the questions of
newcomers too many times to be enthusiastic about it
anymore. Familiarity breeds contempt.
+ Newcomers should try to be patient about our impatience.
Sometimes recasting the question generates interest.
Freshness matters. Often, making an incisive comment,
instead of just asking a basic question, can generate
responses. (Just like in real life.)
- "Clipper sux!" won't generate much response.
2.4.15. "Should I join the Cypherpunks mailing list?"
- If you are reading this, of course, you are most likely on
the Cypherpunks list already and this point is moot--you
may instead be asking if you should_leave_ the List!
- Only if you are prepared to handle 30-60 messages a day,
with volumes fluctuating wildly
2.4.16. "Why isn't the Cypherpunks list encrypted? Don't you believe
in encryption?"
- what's the point, for a publically-subscribable list?
- except to make people jump through hoops, to put a large
burden on toad (unless everybody was given the same key, so
that just one encryption could be done...which underscores
the foolishness)
+ there have been proposals, mainly as a stick to force
people to start using encryption...and to get the encrypted
traffic boosted
- involving delays for those who choose not or can't use
crypto (students on terminals, foreigners in countries
which have banned crypto, corporate subscribers....)
2.4.17. "What does "Cypherpunks write code' mean?"
- a clarifying statement, not an imperative
- technology and concrete solutions over bickering and
chatter
- if you don't write code, fine. Not everyone does (in fact,
probably less than 10% of the list writes serious code, and
less than 5% writes crypto or security software
2.4.18. "What does 'Big Brother Inside' Mean?"
- devised by yours truly (tcmay) at Clipper meeting
- Matt Thomlinson, Postscript
- printed by ....
2.4.19. "I Have a New Idea for a Cipher---Should I Discuss it Here?"
- Please don't. Ciphers require careful analysis, and should
be in paper form (that is, presented in a detailed paper,
with the necessary references to show that due diligence
was done, the equations, tables, etc. The Net is a poor
substitute.
- Also, breaking a randomly presented cipher is by no means
trivial, even if the cipher is eventually shown to be weak.
Most people don't have the inclination to try to break a
cipher unless there's some incentive, such as fame or money
involved.
- And new ciphers are notoriously hard to design. Experts are
the best folks to do this. With all the stuff waiting to be
done (described here), working on a new cipher is probably
the least effective thing an amateur can do. (If you are
not an amateur, and have broken other people's ciphers
before, then you know who you are, and these comments don't
apply. But I'll guess that fewer than a handful of folks on
this list have the necessary background to do cipher
design.)
- There are a vast number of ciphers and systems, nearly all
of no lasting significance. Untested, undocumented, unused-
-and probably unworthy of any real attention. Don't add to
the noise.
2.4.20. Are all the Cypherpunks libertarians?
2.4.21. "What can we do?"
- Deploy strong crypto, to ensure the genie cannot be put in
the bottle
- Educate, lobby, discuss
- Spread doubt, scorn..help make government programs look
foolish
- Sabotage, undermine, monkeywrench
- Pursue other activities
2.4.22. "Why is the list unmoderated? Why is there no filtering of
disrupters like Detweiler?"
- technology over law
- each person makes their own choice
- also, no time for moderation, and moderation is usually
stultifying
+ anyone who wishes to have some views silenced, or some
posters blocked, is advised to:
- contract with someone to be their Personal Censor,
passing on to them only approved material
- subscribe to a filtering service, such as Ray and Harry
are providing
2.4.23. "What Can I Do?"
- politics, spreading the word
- writing code ("Cypherpunks write code")
2.4.24. "Should I publicize my new crypto program?"
- "I have designed a crypting program, that I think is
unbreakable. I challenge anyone who is interested to get
in touch with me, and decrypt an encrypted massage."
"With highest regards,
Babak Sehari." [Babak Sehari, sci.crypt, 6-19-94]
2.4.25. "Ask Emily Post Crypt"
+ my variation on "Ask Emily Postnews"
- for those that don't know, a scathing critique of
clueless postings
+ "I just invented a new cipher. Here's a sample. Bet you
can't break it!"
- By all means post your encrypted junk. We who have
nothing better to do with our time than respond will be
more than happy to spend hours running your stuff through
our codebreaking Crays!
- Be sure to include a sample of encrypted text, to make
yourself appear even more clueless.
+ "I have a cypher I just invented...where should I post it?"
+ "One of the very most basic errors of making ciphers is
simply to add
- layer upon layer of obfuscation and make a cipher which
is nice and
- "complex". Read Knuth on making random number
generators for the
- folly in this kind of approach. "
+ "Ciphers carry the presumption of guilt, not innocence.
Ciphers
- designed by amateurs invariably fail under scrutiny by
experts. This
- sociological fact (well borne out) is where the
presumption of
- insecurity arises. This is not ignorance, to assume
that this will
- change. The burden of proof is on the claimer of
security, not upon
- the codebreaker.
+ "I've just gotten very upset at something--should I vent my
anger on the mailing list?"
- By all means! If you're fed up doing your taxes, or just
read something in the newspaper that really angered you,
definitely send an angry message out to the 700 or so
readers and help make _them_ angry!
- Find a bogus link to crypto or privacy issues to make it
seem more relevant.
2.4.26. "What are some main Cypherpunks projects?"
+ remailers
+ better remailers, more advanced features
- digital postage
- padding, batching/latency
- agent features
- more of them
- offshore (10 sites in 5 countries, as a minimum)
- tools, services
- digital cash in better forms
-
2.4.27. "What about sublists, to reduce the volume on the main list."
- There are already half a dozen sub-lists, devoted to
planning meetings, to building hardware, and to exploring
DC-Nets. There's one for remailer operators, or there used
to be. There are also lists devoted to similar topics as
Cypherpunks, including Robin Hanson's "AltInst" list
(Alternative Institutions), Nick Szabo's "libtech-l" list,
the "IMP-Interest" (Internet Mercantile Protocols) list,
and so on. Most are very low volume.
+ That few folks have heard of any of them, and that traffic
volumes are extremely low, or zero, is not all that
surprising, and matches experiences elsewhere. Several
reasons:
- Sublists are a bother to remember; most people forget
they exist, and don't think to post to them. (This
"forgetting" is one of the most interesting aspects of
cyberspace; successful lists seem to be Schelling points
that accrete even more members, while unsuccessful lists
fade away into nothingness.)
- There's a natural desire to see one's words in the larger
of two forums, so people tend to post to the main list.
- The sublists were sometimes formed in a burst of
exuberance over some topic, which then faded.
- Topics often span several subinterest areas, so posting
to the main list is better than copying all the relevant
sublists.
- In any case, the Cypherpunks main list is "it," for now,
and has driven other lists effectively out of business. A
kind of Gresham's Law.
2.5. Crypto
2.5.1. "Why is crypto so important?"
+ The three elements that are central to our modern view of
liberty and privacy (a la Diffie)
- protecting things against theft
- proving who we say we are
- expecting privacy in our conversations and writings
- Although there is no explicit "right of privacy" enumerated
in the U.S. Constitution, the assumption that an individual
is to be secure in his papers, home, etc., absent a valid
warrant, is central. (There has never been a ruling or law
that persons have to speak in a language that is
understandable by eavesdroppers, wiretappers, etc., nor has
there ever been a rule banning private use of encrption. I
mention this to remind readers of the long history of
crypto freedom.)
- "Information, technology and control of both _is_ power.
*Anonymous* telecommunications has the potential to be the
greatest equalizer in history. Bringing this power to as
many as possible will forever change the discourse of power
in this country (and the world)." [Matthew J Miszewski, ACT
NOW!, 1993-03-06]
2.5.2. "Who uses cryptography?"
- Everybody, in one form or another. We see crypto all around
us...the keys in our pockets, the signatures on our
driver's licenses and other cards, the photo IDs, the
credit cards. Lock combinations, door keys, PIN numbers,
etc. All are part of crypto (although most might call this
"security" and not a very mathematical thing, as
cryptography is usually thought to be).
- Whitticism: "those who regularly
conspire to participate in the political process are
already encrypting." [Whit Diffie]
2.5.3. "Who needs crypto? What have they got to hide?"
+ honest people need crypto because there are dishonest
people
- and there may be other needs for privacy
- There are many reasons why people need privacy, the ability
to keep some things secret. Financial, personal,
psychological, social, and many other reasons.
- Privacy in their papers, in their diaries, in their pesonal
lives. In their financial choices, their investments, etc.
(The IRS and tax authorities in other countries claim to
have a right to see private records, and so far the courts
have backed them up. I disagree.)
- people encrypt for the same reason they close and lock
their doors
- Privacy in its most basic forms
2.5.4. "I'm new to crypto--where should I start?"
- books...Schneier
- soda
- sci.crypt
- talk.politics.crypto
- FAQs other than this one
2.5.5. "Do I need to study cryptography and number theory to make a
contribution?"
- Absolutely not! Most cryptographers and mathematicians are
so busy doing their thing that they little time or interest
for political and entrepreneurial activities.
Specialization is for insects and researchers, as someone's
.sig says.
- Many areas are ripe for contribution. Modularization of
functions means people can concentrate in other areas,
just as writers don't have to learn how to set type, or cut
quill pens, or mix inks.
- Nonspecialists should treat most established ciphers as
"black boxes" that work as advertised. (I'm not saying they
do, just that analysis of them is best left to experts...a
little skepticism may not hurt, though).
2.5.6. "How does public key cryptography work, simply put?"
- Plenty of articles and textbooks describe this, in ever-
increasing detail (they start out with the basics, then get
to the juicy stuff).
+ I did find a simple explanation, with "toy numbers," from
Matthew Ghio:
- "You pick two prime numbers; for example 5 and 7.
Multiply them together, equals 35. Now you calculate the
product of one less than each number, plus one. (5-1)(7-
1)+1=21. There is a mathematical relationship that says
that x = x^21 mod 35 for any x from 0 to 34. Now you
factor 21, yeilds 3 and 7.
"You pick one of those numbers to be your private key and
the other one is your public key. So you have:
Public key: 3
Private key: 7
"Someone encrypts a message for you by taking plaintext
message m to make ciphertext message c: c=m^3 mod 35
"You decrypt c and find m using your private key: m=c^7
mod 35
"If the numbers are several hundred digits long (as in
PGP), it is nearly impossible to guess the secret key."
[Matthew Ghio, alt.anonymous, 1994-09-03]
- (There's a math error here...exercise left for the
student.)
2.5.7. "I'm a newcomer to this stuff...how should I get started?"
- Start by reading some of the material cited. Don't worry
too much about understanding it all.
- Follow the list.
- Find an area that interests you and concentrate on that.
There is no reason why privacy advocates need to understand
Diffie-Hellman key exchange in detail!
+ More Information
+ Books
- Schneier
- Brassard
+ Journals, etc
- Proceedings
- Journal of Cryptology
- Cryptologia
- Newsgroups
- ftp sites
2.5.8. "Who are Alice and Bob?"
2.5.9. "What is security through obscurity"?
- adding layers of confusion, indirection
- rarely is strong in a an infromation-theoretic or
cryptographic sense
- and may have "shortcuts" (like a knot that looks complex
but which falls open if approached the right way)
- encryption algorithms often hidden, sites hidden
- Make no mistake about it, these approaches are often used.
And they can add a little to the overall security (using
file encyption programs like FolderBolt on top of PGP is an
example)...
2.5.10. "Has DES been broken? And what about RSA?"
- DES: Brute-force search of the keyspace in chosen-plaintext
attacks is feeasible in around 2^47 keys, according to
Biham and Shamir. This is about 2^9 times easier than the
"raw" keyspace. Michael Wiener has estimated that a macine
of special chips could crack DES this way for a few
thousand dollars per key. The NSA may have such machines.
- In any case, DES was not expected to last this long by many
(and, in fact, the NSA and NIST proposed a phaseout some
years back, the "CCEP" (Commercial COMSEC Endorsement
Program), but it never caught on and seems forgotten today.
Clipper and EES seem to have grabbed the spotlight.
- IDEA, from Europe, is supposed to be much better.
- As for RSA, this is unlikely. Factoring is not yet proven
to be NP-co
2.5.11. "Can the NSA Break Foo?"
- DES, RSA, IDEA, etc.
- Can the government break our ciphers?
2.5.12. "Can brute-force methods break crypto systems?"
- depends on the system, the keyspace, the ancillary
information avialable, etc.
- processing power generally has been doubling every 12-18
months (Moore's Law), so....
- Skipjack is 80 bits, which is probably safe from brute
force attack for 2^24 = 1.68e7 times as long as DES is.
With Wiener's estimate of 3.5 hours to break DES, this
implies 6700 years using today's hardware. Assuming an
optimistic doubling of hardware power per year (for the
same cost), it will take 24 years before the hardware costs
of a brute force attack on Skipjack come down to what it
now costs to attack DES. Assuming no other weaknesses in
Skipjack.
- And note that intelligence agencies are able to spend much
more than what Wiener calculated (recall Norm Hardy's
description of Harvest)
2.5.13. "Did the NSA know about public key ideas before Diffie and
Hellman?"
+ much debate, and some sly and possibly misleading innuendo
- Simmons claimed he learned of PK in Gardner's column, and
he certainly should've been in a position to know
(weapons, Sandia)
-
+ Inman has claimed that NSA had a P-K concept in 1966
- fits with Dominik's point about sealed cryptosystem boxes
with no way to load new keys
- and consistent with NSA having essentially sole access to
nation's top mathematicians (until Diffies and Hellmans
foreswore government funding, as a result of the anti-
Pentagon feelings of the 70s)
2.5.14. "Did the NSA know about public-key approaches before Diffie
and Hellman?"
- comes up a lot, with some in the NSA trying to slyly
suggest that _of course_ they knew about it...
- Simmons, etc.
- Bellovin comments (are good)
2.5.15. "Can NSA crack RSA?"
- Probably not.
- Certainly not by "searching the keyspace," an idea that
pops up every few months . It can't be done. 1024-bit keys
implies roughly 512-bit primes, or 153-decimal digit
primes. There are more than 10^150 of them! And only about
10^73 particles in the entire universe.
- Has the factoring problem been solved? Probably not. And it
probably won't be, in the sense that factoring is probably
in NP (though this has not been proved) and P is probably
not NP (also unproved, but very strongly suspected). While
there will be advances in factoring, it is extremely
unlikely (in the religious sense) that factoring a 300-
digit number will suddenly become "easy."
- Does the RSA leak information so as to make it easier to
crack than it is to factor the modulus? Suspected by some,
but basically unknown. I would bet against it. But more
iffy than the point above.
+ "How strong is strong crypto?"
- Basically, stronger than any of the hokey "codes" so
beloved of thriller writers and movie producers. Modern
ciphers are not crackable by "telling the computer to run
through all the combinations" (more precisely, the number
of combinations greatly exceeds the number of atoms in
the universe).
2.5.16. "Won't more powerful computers make ciphers breakable?"
+ The effects of increasing computer power confer even
*greater* advantage to the cipher user than to the cipher
breaker. (Longer key lengths in RSA, for example, require
polynomially more time to use, but exponentially more time
to break, roughly speaking.) Stunningly, it is likely that
we are close to being able to use key lengths which cannot
be broken with all the computer power that will ever exist
in the universe.
+ Analogous to impenetrable force fields protecting the
data, with more energy required to "punch through" than
exists in the universe
- Vernor Vinge's "bobbles," in "The Peace War."
- Here I am assuming that no short cuts to factoring
exist...this is unproven, but suspected. (No major
shortcuts, i.e., factoring is not "easy.")
+ A modulus of thousands of decimal digits may require more
total "energy" to factor, using foreseeable approaches,
than is available
- reversible computation may help, but I suspect not much
- Shor's quantum-mechanical approach is completely
untested...and may not scale well (e.g., it may be
marginally possible to get the measurement precision to
use this method for, say, 100-digit numbers, but
utterly impossible to get it for 120-digit numbers, let
alone 1000-digit numbers)
2.5.17. "Will strong crypto help racists?"
- Yes, this is a consequence of having secure virtual
communities. Free speech tends to work that way!
- The Aryan Nation can use crypto to collect and disseminate
information, even into "controlled" nations like Germany
that ban groups like Aryan Nation.
- Of course, "on the Internet no one knows you're a dog," so
overt racism based on superficial external characteristics
is correspondingly harder to pull off.
- But strong crypto will enable and empower groups who have
different beliefs than the local majority, and will allow
them to bypass regional laws.
2.5.18. Working on new ciphers--why it's not a Cypherpunks priority
(as I see it)
- It's an issue of allocation of resources. ("All crypto is
economics." E. Hughes) Much work has gone into cipher
design, and the world seems to have several stable, robust
ciphers to choose from. Any additional work by crypto
amateurs--which most of us are, relative to professional
mathematicians and cipher designers--is unlikely to move
things forward significantly. Yes, it could happen...but
it's not likely.
+ Whereas there are areas where professional cryptologists
have done very little:
- PGP (note that PRZ did *not* take time out to try to
invent his own ciphers, at least not for Version
2.0)...he concentrated on where his efforts would have
the best payoff
- implementation of remailers
- issues involving shells and other tools for crypto use
- digital cash
- related issues, such as reputations, language design,
game theory, etc.
- These are the areas of "low-hanging fruit," the areas where
the greatest bang for the buck lies, to mix some metaphors
(grapeshot?).
2.5.19. "Are there any unbreakable ciphers?"
- One time pads are of course information-theoretically
secure, i.e., unbreakable by computer power.
+ For conventional ciphers, including public key ciphers,
some ciphers may not be breakable in _our_ universe, in any
amount of time. The logic goes as follows:
- Our universe presumably has some finite number of
particles (currently estimated to be 10^73 particles).
This leads to the "even if every particle were a Cray Y-
MP it would take..." sorts of thought experiments.
But I am considering _energy_ here. Ignoring reversible
computation for the moment, computations dissipate energy
(some disagree with this point). There is some uppper
limit on how many basic computations could ever be done
with the amount of free energy in the universe. (A rough
calculation could be done by calculating the energy
output of stars, stuff falling into black holes, etc.,
and then assuming about kT per logical operation. This
should be accurate to within a few orders of magnitude.)
I haven't done this calculation, and won't here, but the
result would likely be something along the lines of X
joules of energy that could be harnessed for computation,
resulting in Y basic primitive computational steps.
I can then find a modulus of 3000 digits or 5000 digits,
or whatever, that takes *more* than this number of steps
to factor. Therefore, unbreakable in our universe.
- Caveats:
1. Maybe there are really shortcuts to factoring. Certainly
improvements in factoring methods will continue. (But of
course these improvements are not things that convert
factoring into a less than exponential-in-length
problem...that is, factoring appears to remain "hard.")
2. Maybe reversible computations (a la Landauer, Bennett,
et. al.) actually work. Maybe this means a "factoring
machine" can be built which takes a fixed, or very slowly
growing, amount of energy. In this case, "forever" means
Lefty is probably right.
3. Maybe the quantum-mechanical idea of Peter Shor is
possible. (I doubt it, for various reasons.)
2.5.20. "How safe is RSA?" "How safe is PGP?" "I heard that PGP has
bugs?"
- This cloud of questions is surely the most common sort that
appears in sci.crypt. It sometimes gets no answers,
sometimes gets a rude answer, and only occasionally does it
lead to a fruiful discussion.
- The simple anwer: These ciphers appear to be safe, to have
no obvious flaws.
- More details can be found in various question elsewhere in
this FAQ and in the various FAQs and references others have
published.
2.5.21. "How long does encryption have to be good for?"
- This obviously depends on what you're encrypting. Some
things need only be safe for short periods of time, e.g., a
few years or even less. Other things may come back to haunt
you--or get you thrown in prison--many years later. I can
imagine secrets that have to be kept for many decades, even
centuries (for example, one may fear one's descendents will
pay the price for a secret revealed).
- It is useful to think _now_ about the computer power likely
to be available in the year 2050, when many of you reading
this will still be around. (I'm _not_ arguing that
parallelism, etc., will cause RSA to fall, only that some
key lengths (e.g., 512-bit) may fall by then. Better be
safe and use 1024 bits or even more. Increased computer
power makes longer keys feasible, too.).
2.6. PGP
2.6.1. There's a truly vast amount of information out there on PGP,
from current versions, to sites, to keyserver issues, and so
on. There are also several good FAQs on PGP, on MacPGP, and
probably on nearly every major version of PGP. I don't expect
to compete here with these more specialized FAQs.
- I'm also not a PGP expert, using it only for sending and
receiving mail, and rarely doing much more with it.
- The various tools, for all major platforms, are a specialty
unto themselves.
2.6.2. "Where do I get PGP?"
2.6.3. "Where can I find PGP?"
- Wait around for several days and a post will come by which
gives some pointers.
- Here are some sites current at this writing: (watch out for
changes)
2.6.4. "Is PGP secure? I heard someone had...."
- periodic reports, urban legend, that PGP has been
compromised, that Phil Z. has been "persuaded" to....
+ implausible for several reasons
- Phil Z no longer controls the source code by himself
- the source code is available and can be inspected...would
be very difficult to slip in major back doors that would
not be apparent in the source code
- Phil has denied this, and the rumors appear to come from
idle speculation
+ But can PGP be broken?
- has not been tested independently in a thorough,
cryptanalytic way, yet (opinion of tcmay)
- NSA isn't saying
+ Areas for attack
+ IDEA
- some are saying doubling of the number of rounds
should be donee
- the random number generators...Colin Plumb's admission
2.6.5. "Should I use PGP and other crypto on my company's
workstations?"
- machines owned by corporations and universities, usually on
networks, are generally not secure (that is, they may be
compromised in various ways)
- ironically, most of the folks who sign all their messages,
who use a lot of encryption, are on just such machines
- PCs and Macs and other nonnetworked machines are more
secure, but are harder to use PGP on (as of 1994)
- these are generalizations--there are insecure PCs and
secure workstations
2.6.6. "I just got PGP--should I use it for all my mail?"
- No! Many people cannot easily use PGP, so if you wish to
communicate with them, don't encrypt everything. Use
encryption where it matters.
- If you just want more people to use encryption, help with
the projects to better integrate crypto into existing
mailers.
2.6.7. NSA is apparently worried about PGP, worried about the spread
of PGP to other countries, and worried about the growth of
"internal communities" that communicate via "black pipes" or
"encrypted tunnels" that are impenetrable to them.
2.7. Clipper
2.7.1. "How can the government do this?"
- incredulity that bans, censorship, etc. are legal
+ several ways these things happen
- not tested in the courts
- wartime regulations
+ conflicting interpretations
- e.g., "general welfare" clause used to justify
restrictions on speech, freedom of association, etc.
+ whenever public money or facilities used (as with
churches forced to hire Satanists)
- and in this increasingly interconnnected world, it is
sometimes very hard to avoid overlap with public
funding, facilities, etc.
2.7.2. "Why don't Cypherpunks develop their won competing encryption
chip?"
+ Many reasons not to:
- cost
- focus
- expertise
- hard to sell such a competing standard
- better to let market as a whole make these choices
2.7.3. "Why is crypto so frightening to governments?"
+ It takes away the state's power to snoop, to wiretap, to
eavesdrop, to control
- Priestly confessionals were a major way the Church kept
tabs on the locals...a worldwide, grassroots system of
ecclesiastical narcs
+ Crypto has high leverage
+ Unlike direct assaults with bombs, HERF and EMP attacks,
sabotage, etc, crypto is self-spreading...a bootstrap
technology
- people use it, give it to others, put it on networks
- others use it for their own purposes
- a cascade effect, growing geometrically
- and undermining confidence in governments, allowing the
spread of multiple points of view (especially
unapproved views)
2.7.4. "I've just joined the list and am wondering why I don't see
more debate about Clipper?"
- Understand that people rarely write essays in response to
questions like "Why is Clipper bad?" For most of us,
mandatory key escrow is axiomatically bad; no debate is
needed.
- Clipper was thoroughly trashed by nearly everyone within
hours and days of its announcement, April 16, 1993.
Hundreds of articles and editorials have condemned it.
Cyperpunks currently has no active supporters of mandatory
key escrow, from all indications, so there is nothing to
debate.
2.8. Other Ciphers and Crypto Products
2.9. Remailers and Anonymity
2.9.1. "What are remailers?"
2.9.2. "How do remailers work?" (a vast number of postings have
dealt with this)
- The best way to understand them is to "just do it," that
is, send a few remailed message to yourself, to see how the
syntax works. Instructions are widely available--some are
cited here, and up to date instructions will appear in the
usual Usenet groups.
- The simple view: Text messages are placed in envelopes and
sent to a site that has agreed to remail them based on the
instructions it finds. Encryption is not necessary--though
it is of course recommended. These "messages in bottles"
are passed from site to site and ultimately to the intended
final recipient.
- The message is pure text, with instructions contained _in
the text_ itself (this was a fortuitous choice of standard
by Eric Hughes, in 1992, as it allowed chaining,
independence from particular mail systems, etc.).
- A message will be something like this:
::
Request-Remailing-To: remailer@bar.baz
Body of text, etc., etc. (Which could be more remailing
instructions, digital postage, etc.)
- These nested messages make no assumptions about the type of
mailer being used, so long as it can handle straight ASCII
text, which all mailers can of course. Each mail message
then acts as a kind of "agent," carrying instructions on
where it should be mailed next, and perhaps other things
(like delays, padding, postage, etc.)
- It's very important to note that any given remailer cannot
see the contents of the envelopes he is remailing, provided
encryption is used. (The orginal sender picks a desired
trajectory through the labyrinth of remailers, encrypts in
the appropriate sequence (last is innermost, then next to
last, etc.), and then the remailers sequentially decrypt
the outer envelopes as they get them. Envelopes within
envelopes.)
2.9.3. "Can't remailers be used to harass people?"
- Sure, so can free speech, anonymous physical mail ("poison
pen letters"), etc.
- With e-mail, people can screen their mail, use filters,
ignore words they don't like, etc. Lots of options. "Sticks
and stones" and all that stuff we learned in Kindergarten
(well, I'm never sure what the the Gen Xers learned....).
- Extortion is made somewhat easier by anonymous mailers, but
extortion threats can be made in other ways, such as via
physical mail, or from payphones, etc.
- Physical actions, threats, etc. are another matter. Not the
domain of crypto, per se.
2.10. Surveillance and Privacy
2.10.1. "Does the NSA monitor this list?"
- Probably. We've been visible enough, and there are many
avenues for monitoring or even subscribing to the List.
Many aliases, many points of presence.
- some concerns that Cypherpunks list has been infiltrated
and is a "round up list"
- There have even been anonymous messages purporting to name
likely CIA, DIA, and NSA spooks. ("Be aware.")
- Remember, the list of subscribers is _not_ a secret--it can
be gotten by sending a "who cypherpunks" message to
majordomo@toad.com. Anyone in the world can do this.
2.10.2. "Is this list illegal?"
- Depends on the country. In the U.S., there are very strong
protections against "prior restraint" for published
material, so the list is fairly well -protected....shutting
it down would create a First Amendment case of major
importance. Which is unlikely. Conspiracy and sedition laws
are more complex to analyze; there are no indications that
material here or on the list is illegal.
- Advocacy of illegal acts (subversion of export laws,
espionage, etc.) is generally legal. Even advocating the
overthrow of the government.
- The situation in other countries is different. Some
countries ban unapproved encryption, so this list is
suspect.
- Practically speaking, anyone reading this list is probably
in a place which either makes no attempt to control
encryption or is unable to monitor what crosses its
borders.
2.10.3. "Can keystrokes really be monitored remotely? How likely is
this?"
- Yes. Van Eck, RF, monitors, easy (it is claimed) to build
this
- How likely? Depends on who you are. Ames, the KGB spy, was
probably monitored near the end, but I doubt many of us
are. The costs are simply too high...the vans outside, the
personnel needed, etc.
- the real hazards involve making it "easy" and "almost
automatic" for such monitoring, such as with Clipper and
EES. Then they essentially just flip a switch and the
monitoring happens...no muss, no fuss.
2.10.4. "Wouldn't some crimes be stopped if the government could
monitor what it wanted to?"
- Sure. This is an old story. Some criminals would be caught
if their diaries could be examined. Television cameras in
all homes would reduce crimes of .... (Are you listening,
Winston?).
- Orwell, fascism, surveillance states, what have you got to
hide, etc.
2.11. Legal
2.11.1. "Can encryption be banned?"
- ham operators, shortwave
- il gelepal, looi to waptime aolditolq
+ how is this any different from requiring speech in some
language?
- Navaho code talkers of WW2,,,,modern parallel
2.11.2. "Will the government try to ban encryption?"
- This is of course the major concern most of us have about
Clipper and the Escrowed Encryption Standard in general.
Even if we think the banning of crypto will ultimately be a
failure ("worse than Prohibition," someone has said), such
a ban could make things very uncomfortable for many and
would be a serious abridgement of basic liberties.
- We don't know, but we fear something along these lines. It
will be difficult to enforce such a ban, as so many avenues
for communication exist, and encrypted messages may be hard
to detect.
- Their goal, however, may be _control_ and the chilling
effect that using "civil forfeiture" may have on potential
crypto users. Like the drug laws. (Whit Diffie was the
first to emphasize this motivation.)
2.11.3. "How could encryption be banned?"
- most likely way: restrictions on networks, a la airwaves or
postal service
- could cite various needs, but absent a mechanism as above,
hard to do
- an outright ban, enforced with civil forfeiture penalties
- wartime sorts of policies (crypto treated as sedition,
treason...some high-profile prison sentences)
- scenario posted by Sandfort?
2.11.4. "What's the situation about export of crypto?"
+ There's been much debate about this, with the case of Phil
Zimmermann possibly being an important test case, should
charges be filed.
- as of 1994-09, the Grand Jury in San Jose has not said
anything (it's been about 7-9 months since they started
on this issue)
- Dan Bernstein has argued that ITAR covers nearly all
aspects of exporting crypto material, including codes,
documentation, and even "knowledge." (Controversially, it
may be in violation of ITAR for knowledgeable crypto people
to even leave the country with the intention of developing
crypto tools overseas.)
- The various distributions of PGP that have occurred via
anonymous ftp sources don't imply that ITAR is not being
enforced, or won't be in the future.
2.11.5. "What's the legal status of digital signatures?"
- Not yet tested in court. Ditto for most crypto protocols,
including digital timestamping, electronic contracts,
issues of lost keys, etc.
2.11.6. "Can't I just claim I forgot my password?"
2.11.7. "Is it dangerous to talk openly about these ideas?"
- Depends on your country. In some countries, perhaps no. In
the U.S., there's not much they can do (though folks should
be aware that the Cypherpunks have received a lot of
attention by the media and by policy makers, and so a vocal
presence on this list very likely puts one on a list of
crypto trouble makers).
- Some companies may also feel views expressed here are not
consistent with their corporate policies. Your mileage may
vary.
- Sedition and treason laws are not likely to be applicable.
- some Cypherpunks think so
- Others of us take the First Amendment pretty seriously:
that _all_ talk is permissable
- NSA agents threatened to have Jim Bidzos killed
2.11.8. "Does possession of a key mean possession of *identity*?"
- If I get your key, am I you?
- Certainly not outside the context of the cryptographic
transaction. But within the context of a transaction, yes.
Additional safeguards/speedbumps can be inserted (such as
biometric credentials, additional passphrases, etc.), but
these are essentially part of the "key," so the basic
answer remains "yes." (There are periodically concerns
raised about this, citing the dangers of having all
identity tied to a single credential, or number, or key.
Well, there are ways to handle this, such as by adopting
protocols that limit one's exposure, that limits the amount
of money that can be withdrawn, etc. Or people can adopt
protocols that require additional security, time delays,
countersigning, etc.)
+ This may be tested in court soon enough, but the answer for
many contracts and crypto transactions will be that
possession of key = possession of identity. Even a court
test may mean little, for the types of transactions I
expect to see.
- That is, in anonymous systems, "who ya gonna sue?"
- So, guard your key.
2.12. Digital Cash
2.12.1. "What is digital money?"
2.12.2. "What are the main uses of strong crypto for business and
economic transactions?"
- Secure communications. Ensuring privacy of transaction
records (avoiding eavesdroppes, competitors)
- Digital signatures on contracts (will someday be standard)
- Digital cash.
- Reputations.
- Data Havens. That bypass local laws about what can be
stored and what can't (e.g., silly rules on how far back
credit records can go).
2.12.3. "What are smart cards and how are they used?"
+ Most smart cards as they now exist are very far from being
the anonymous digital cash of primary interest to us. In
fact, most of them are just glorified credit cards.
- with no gain to consumers, since consumes typically don't
pay for losses by fraud
- (so to entice consumes, will they offer inducements?)
- Can be either small computers, typically credit-card-sized,
or just cards that control access via local computers.
+ Tamper-resistant modules, e.g., if tampered with, they
destroy the important data or at the least give evidence of
having been tampered with.
+ Security of manufacturing
- some variant of "cut-and-choose" inspection of
premises
+ Uses of smart cards
- conventional credit card uses
- bill payment
- postage
- bridge and road tolls
- payments for items received electronically (not
necessarily anonymously)
2.13. Crypto Anarchy
2.13.1. "What is Crypto Anarchy?"
- Some of us believe various forms of strong cryptography
will cause the power of the state to decline, perhaps even
collapse fairly abruptly. We believe the expansion into
cyberspace, with secure communications, digital money,
anonymity and pseudonymity, and other crypto-mediated
interactions, will profoundly change the nature of
economies and social interactions.
Governments will have a hard time collecting taxes,
regulating the behavior of individuals and corporations
(small ones at least), and generally coercing folks when it
can't even tell what _continent_ folks are on!
Read Vinge's "True Names" and Card's "Ender's Game" for
some fictional inspirations. "Galt's Gulch" in cyberspace,
what the Net is rapidly becoming already.
I call this set of ideas "crypto anarchy" (or "crypto-
anarchy," as you wish) and have written about this
extensively. The magazines "Wired" (issue 1.2), "Whole
Earth Review" (Summer, 1993), and "The Village Voice" (Aug.
6th, 1993) have all carried good articles on this.
2.13.2. The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto
- a complete copy of my 1988 pastiche of the Communisto
Manifesto is included in the chapter on Crypto Anarchy.
- it needs rewriting, but for historical sake I've left it
unchanged.
- I'm proud that so much of it remains accurate.
2.13.3. "What is BlackNet?"
- BlackNet -- an experiment in information markets, using
anonymous message pools for exchange of instructions and
items. Tim May's experiment in guerilla ontology.
- BlackNet -- an experimental scheme devised by T. May to
underscore the nature of anonymous information markets.
"Any and all" secrets can be offered for sale via anonymous
mailers and message pools. The experiment was leaked via
remailer to the Cypherpunks list (not by May) and thence to
several dozen Usenet groups by Detweiler. The authorities
are said to be investigating it.
2.13.4. "What effect will crypto have on governments?"
- A huge topic, one I've been thinking about since late 1987
when it dawned on me that public key crypto and anonymous
digital cash systems, information markets, etc. meant the
end of governments as we know them. (I called this
development "crypto anarchy." Not everyone is a fan of it.
But it's coming, and fast.)
- "Putting the NSA out of business," as the NYT article put
it
- Espionage is changing. To pick one example, "digital dead
drops." Any message can be sent through an untraceable path
with remailers....and then posted in encrypted form in a
newsgroup readable in most countries, including the Former
Soviet Union. This means the old stand by of the microfilm
in a Coke can left by a certain tree on a rural road--a
method fraught with delays, dangers, and hassles--is now
passe. The same message can be send from the comfort of
one's home securely and untraceably. Even with a a digital
signature to prevent spoofing and disinformation. This spy
can be a Lockheed worker on the Aurora program, a SIGINT
officer at Woomera, or a disgruntled chip designer at
Motorola. (Yes, a countermeasure is to limit access to
personal computers, to run only standard software that has
no such crypto capability. Such embargoes may already apply
to some in sensitive positions, and may someday be a
condition of employment.)
- Money-laundering
- Tax collection. International consultants. Perpetual
tourists. Virtual corporations.
- Terrorism, assassination, crime, Triads, Yakuza, Jamaicans,
Russian Mafia...virtual networks... Aryan Nation gone
digital
2.13.5. "How quickly could something like crypto anarchy come?"
- Parts of it are happening already, though the changes in
the world are not something I take any credit for. Rather,
there are ongoing changes in the role of nations, of power,
and of the ability to coerce behaviors. When people can
drop out of systems they don't like, can move to different
legal or tax jurisdictions, then things change.
+ But a phase change could occur quickly, just as the Berlin
Wall was impregnable one day, and down the next.
- "Public anger grows quietly and explodes suddenly. T.C.
May's "phase change" may be closer than we think. Nobody
in Russia in 1985 really thought the country would fall
apart in 6 years." [Mike Ingle, 1994-01-01]
2.13.6. "Could strong crypto be used for sick and disgusting and
dangerous purposes?"
- Of course. So can locked doors, but we don't insist on an
"open door policy" (outside of certain quaint sorority and
rooming houses!) So do many forms of privacy allow
plotters, molestors, racists, etc. to meet and plot.
- Crypto is in use by the Aryan Nation, by both pro- and anti-
abortion groups, and probably by other kinds of terrorists.
Expect more uses in the future, as things like PGP continue
to spread.
- Many of us are explicity anti-democratic, and hope to use
encryption to undermine the so-called democratic
governments of the world
2.13.7. "What is the Dining Cryptographers Problem, and why is it so
important?"
+ This is dealt with in the main section, but here's David
Chaum's Abstract, from his 1988 paper"
- Abstract: "Keeping confidential who sends which messages,
in a world where any physical transmission can be traced
to its origin, seems impossible. The solution presented
here is unconditionally or cryptographically secure,
depending on whether it is based on one-time-use keys or
on public keys. respectively. It can be adapted to
address efficiently a wide variety of practical
considerations." ["The Dining Cryptographers Problem:
Unconditional Sender and Recipient Untraceability," David
Chaum, Journal of Cryptology, I, 1, 1988.]
-
- DC-nets have yet to be implemented, so far as I know, but
they represent a "purer" version of the physical remailers
we are all so familiar with now. Someday they'll have have
a major impact. (I'm a bigger fan of this work than many
seem to be, as there is little discussion in sci.crypt and
the like.)
2.13.8. "Why won't government simply ban such encryption methods?"
+ This has always been the Number One Issue!
- raised by Stiegler, Drexler, Salin, and several others
(and in fact raised by some as an objection to my even
discussing these issues, namely, that action may then be
taken to head off the world I describe)
+ Types of Bans on Encryption and Secrecy
- Ban on Private Use of Encryption
- Ban on Store-and-Forward Nodes
- Ban on Tokens and ZKIPS Authentication
- Requirement for public disclosure of all transactions
+ Recent news (3-6-92, same day as Michaelangelo and
Lawnmower Man) that government is proposing a surcharge
on telcos and long distance services to pay for new
equipment needed to tap phones!
- S.266 and related bills
- this was argued in terms of stopping drug dealers and
other criminals
- but how does the government intend to deal with the
various forms fo end-user encryption or "confusion"
(the confusion that will come from compression,
packetizing, simple file encryption, etc.)
+ Types of Arguments Against Such Bans
- The "Constitutional Rights" Arguments
+ The "It's Too Late" Arguments
- PCs are already widely scattered, running dozens of
compression and encryption programs...it is far too
late to insist on "in the clear" broadcasts, whatever
those may be (is program code distinguishable from
encrypted messages? No.)
- encrypted faxes, modem scramblers (albeit with some
restrictions)
- wireless LANs, packets, radio, IR, compressed text and
images, etc....all will defeat any efforts short of
police state intervention (which may still happen)
+ The "Feud Within the NSA" Arguments
- COMSEC vs. PROD
+ Will affect the privacy rights of corporations
- and there is much evidence that corporations are in
fact being spied upon, by foreign governments, by the
NSA, etc.
+ They Will Try to Ban Such Encryption Techniques
+ Stings (perhaps using viruses and logic bombs)
- or "barium," to trace the code
+ Legal liability for companies that allow employees to use
such methods
- perhaps even in their own time, via the assumption that
employees who use illegal software methods in their own
time are perhaps couriers or agents for their
corporations (a tenuous point)
2.13.9. "Could anonymous markets facilitate repugnant services, such
as killings for hire?"
- Yes, though there are some things which will help lessen
the full impact.
- To make this brutally concrete, here's how escrow makes
murder contracts much safer than they are today to
negotiate. Instead of one party being caught in an FBI
sting, as is so often the case when amateurs try to arrange
hits, they can use an escrow service to insulate themselves
from:
1. From being traced, because the exchanges are handled via
pseudonyms
2. From the killer taking the money and then not performing
the hit, because the escrow agent holds the money until the
murder is verified (according to some prototocol, such a
newspaper report...again, an area for more work,
thankfully).
3. From being arrested when the money is picked up, as this
is all done via digital cash.
There are some ways to reduce the popularity of this
Murder, Incorporated system. (Things I've been thinking
about for about 6 years, and which we discussed on the
Cypherpunks list and on the Extropians list.)
2.14. Miscellaneous
2.14.1. "Why can't people just agree on an approach?"
- "Why can't everyone just support my proposal?"
- "I've proposed a new cipher, but nobody's interested...you
Cypherpunks just never _do_ anything!"
- This is one of the most consistently divisive issues on the
list. Often a person will become enamored of some approach,
will write posts exhorting others to become similarly
enamored, urging others to "do something!," and will then,
when no interest is evidenced, become irate. To be more
concrete, this happens most often with various and sundry
proposals for "digital money." A close second is for
various types of "Cypherpunks activism," with proposals
that we get together and collect a few million dollars to
run Ross Perot-type advertisements urging people to use
PGP, with calls for a "Cypherpunks radio show," and so on.
(Nothing wrong with people doing these things, I suppose.
The problem lies in the exhortation of _others_ to do these
things.)
- This collective action is always hard to achieve, and
rightly so, in my opinion. Emergent behavior is more
natural, and more efficient. And hence better.
+ the nature of markets, agents, different agendas and goals
- real standards and markets evolve
- sometimes because of a compelling exemplar (the Walkman,
PGP), sometimes because of hard work by standards
committees (NTSC, electric sockets, etc.)
- but almost never by simple appeals to correctness or
ideological rightness
2.14.2. "What are some of the practical limits on the deployment of
crypto, especially things like digital cash and remailers?"
+ Lack of reliable services
- Nodes go down, students go home for the summer, downtime
for various reasons
- Lack of robustness
2.14.3. "Is crypto dominated by mistrust? I get the impression that
everything is predicated on mutual mistrust."
- We lock our doors...does this mean we are lacking in trust?
No, it means we understand there are _some_ out there who
will exploit unlocked doors. Ditto for the crypto world.
- "Trust, but verify," as Ronald Reagan used to say. Mutual
mistrust can actually make for a more trustworthy
environment, paradoxical as that may sound. "Even paranoids
have enemies."
- The danger in a trusting environment that lacks other
mechanisms is that "predators" or "defectors" (in game-
theoretic terms) can exploit this trusting environment.
Confidence games, scams, renegging on deals, and even
outright theft.
- Crypto offers the opportunity for "mutually suspicious
agents" to interact without explicit "trust."
2.14.4. "Who is Detweiler?"
+ S. Boxx, an12070, ldxxyyy, Pablo Escobar, Hitler, Linda
Lollipop, Clew Lance Simpleton, tmp@netcom.com, Jim
Riverman
- often with my sig block, or variants of it, attached
- even my phone number
- he lost his ColoState account for such tactics...
- electrocrisy
- cypherwonks
2.14.5. "Who is Sternlight?"
- A retired policy analyst who is often contentious in Usenet
groups and supportive of government policies on crypto
policy. Not nearly as bad as Detweiler.
2.15. More Information and References
2.15.1. "Where can I find more information?"
- Well, this is a start. Also, lots of other FAQs and Mosaic
home pages (URLs) exist, encompassing a vast amount of
knowledge.
- As long as this FAQ is, it can only scratch the surface on
many topics. (I'm especially amused when someone says
they've looked for a FAQ on some obscure topic. No FAQ is
likely to answer all questions, especially obcure ones.)
- Many articles and papers are available at the
ftp.csua.berkeley.edu
site, in pub/cypherpunks. Look around there. The 1981 Chaum
paper on untraceabel e-mail is not (too many equations for
easy scanning), but the 1988 paper on Dining Cryptographers
Nets is. (I laboriously scanned it and OCRed it, back when
I used to have the energy to do such thankless tasks.)
+ Some basic sources:
+ Sci.crypt FAQ, published regularly, Also available by
anonymous ftp at rtfm.mit.edu. And in various URLs,
including:
- URLs for sci.crypt FAQ: xxxxxx
- RSA Data Security Inc. FAQ
- Bruce Schneier's "Applied Cryptography" book, 1993. Every
reader of this list should get this book!
- The "online generation" tends to want all material online,
I know, but most of the good stuff is to be found in paper
form, in journals and books. This is likely to be the case
for many years to come, given the limitation of ASCII, the
lack of widespread standards (yes, I know about LaTex,
etc.), and the academic prestige associated with bound
journals and books. Fortunately, you can _all_ find
universit libraries within driving range. Take my advice:
if you do not spend at least an entire Saturday immersing
yourself in the crypto literature in the math section of a
large library, perusing the "Proceeedings of the Crypto
Conference" volumes, scanning the textbooks, then you have
a poor foundation for doing any crypto work.
2.15.2. "Things are changing quickly. Not all of the addresses and
URLs given here are valid. And the software versions... How
do I get the latest information?"
- Yes, things are changing quickly. This document can't
possibly keep up with the rapid changes (nor can its
author!).
- Reading the various newsgroups is, as always, the best way
to hear what's happening on a day to day basis. Web pages,
gopher, archie, veronica, etc. should show the latest
versions of popular software packages.
2.15.3. "FUQs: "Frequently Unanswered Questions"?"
- (more to be added)
- With 700 or more people on the Cypherpunks list (as of 94-
09), it is inevitable that some FAQs will go unanswered
when newbies (or others) ask them. Sometimes the FUQs are
ignored because they're so stale, other times because to
answer them is to continue and unfruitful thread.
+ "P = NP?"
- Steve Smale has called this the most important new
unsolved problem of the past half-century.
- If P were (unexpectedly) proved to be NP
+ Is RSA and factoring in NP?
- not yet proved
- factoring might be easier
- and RSA might be easier than factoring in general (e.g.,
chosen- and known-plaintext may provide clues)
- "Will encryption be outlawed? What will happen?"
+ "Is David Sternlight an NSA agent?"
- Seriously, David S. is probably what he claims: a retired
economist who was once very senior in government and
corporate policy circles. I have no reason to doubt him.
- He has views at odds with most of us, and a baiting style
of expressing his views, but this does not mean he is a
government agent as so many people claim.
- Not in the same class as Detweiler.
3. Cypherpunks -- History, Organization, Agenda
3.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
3.2. SUMMARY: Cypherpunks -- History, Organization, Agenda
3.2.1. Main Points
- Cypherpunks formed in September, 1992
- formed at an opportune time, with PGP 2.0, Clipper, etc.
hitting
- early successes: Cypherpunks remailers, publicity
3.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
3.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
- "Wired," issue 1.2, had a cover story on Cypherpunks.
- "Whole Earth Review," Summer 1993, had a long article on
crypto and Cypherpunks (included in the book "Out of
Control," by Kevin Kelly.
- "Village Voice," August 6th (?). 1993, had cover story on
"Crypto Rebels" (also reprinted in local weeklies)
- and numerous articles in various magazines
3.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
- the best way to get a feel for the List is to simply read
it for a while; a few months should do.
3.3. The Cypherpunks Group and List
3.3.1. What is it?
+ Formal Rules, Charter, etc.?
- no formal rules or charter
- no agreed-upon mission
3.3.2. "Who are the Cypherpunks?"
- A mix of about 500-700
+ Can find out who by sending message to majordomo@toad.com
with the message body text "who cypherpunks" (no quotes, of
course).
- Is this a privacy flaw? Maybe.
- Lots of students (they have the time, the Internet
accounts). Lots of computer science/programming folks. Lots
of libertarians.
- quote from Wired article, and from "Whole Earth Review"
3.3.3. "How did the Cypherpunks group get started?"
+ History?
- Discussions between Eric Hughes and me, led to Eric's
decision to host a gathering
+ First meeting was, by coincidence, the same week that PGP
2.0 was released...we all got copies that day
- morning session on basics
- sitting on the floor
+ afternoon we played the "Crypto Game"
- remailers, digital money, information for sale, etc.
- John Gilmore offered his site to host a mailing list, and
his company's offices to hold monthly meetings
- The mailing list began almost immediately
- The Name "Cypherpunks"?
3.3.4. "Should I join the Cypherpunks mailing list?"
- If you are reading this, of course, you are most likely on
the Cypherpunks list already and this point is moot--you
may instead be asking if you should_leave_ the List!
- Only if you are prepared to handle 30-60 messages a day,
with volumes fluctuating wildly
3.3.5. "How can I join the Cypherpunk mailing list?"
- send message to "majordomo@toad.com" with a _body_ text of
"subscribe cypherpunks" (no quote marks in either, of
course).
3.3.6. "Membership?"
- about 500-700 at any given time
- many folks join, are overwhelmed, and quit
- other groups: Austin, Colorado, Boston, U.K.
3.3.7. "Why are there so many libertarians on the Cypherpunks list?"
+ The same question is often asked about the Net in general.
Lots of suggested reasons:
- A list like Cypherpunks is going to have privacy and
freedom advocates. Not all privacy advocates are
libertarians (e.g., they may want laws restricting data
collection), but many are. And libertarians naturally
gravitate to causes like ours.
- Net grew anarchically, with little control. This appeals
to free-wheeling types, used to making their own choices
and building their own worlds.
- Libertarians are skeptical of central control structures,
as are most computer programming types. They are
skeptical that a centrally-run control system can
coordinate the needs and desires of people. (They are of
course more than just "skeptical" about this.)
- In any case, there's not much of a coherent "opposition
camp" to the anarcho-capitalist, libertarian ideology.
Forgive me for saying this, my non-libertarian friends on
the list, but most non-libertarian ideologies I've seen
expressed on the list have been fragmentary, isolated, and
not coherent...comments about "how do we take care of the
poor?" and Christian fundamentalism, for example. If there
is a coherent alternative to a basically libertarian
viewpoint, we haven't seen it on the list.
- (Of course, some might say that the libertarians outshout
the alternatives...I don't think this is really so.)
3.3.8. "How did the mailing list get started?"
- Hugh Daniel, Eric Hughes, and I discussed this the day
after the first meeting
- mailing list brought together diverse interests
- How to hoin?
3.3.9. "How did Cypherpunks get so much early publicity?"
- started at the right time, just as PGP was gaining
popularity, as plans for key escrow were being laid (I
sounded an alarm in October, 1992, six months before the
Clipper announcement), and just as "Wired" was preparing
its first issue
- Kevin Kelly and Steven Levy attended some of our early
meetings, setting the stage for very favorable major
stories in "Wired" (issue 1.2, the cover story), and "Whole
Earth Review" (Summer, 1993)
- a niche for a "renegade" and "monkey-wrenching" group, with
less of a Washington focus
- publicity in "Wired," "The Whole Earth Review," "The
Village Voice"
+ Clipper bombshell occupied much of our time, with some
effect on policy
- climate of repudiation
- links to EFF, CPSR, etc.
3.3.10. "Why the name?"
- Jude Milhon nicknames us
- cypherpunkts? (by analogy with Mikropunkts, microdots)
3.3.11. "What were the early meetings like?"
- cypherspiel, Crypto Anarchy Game
3.3.12. "Where are places that I can meet other Cypherpunks?"
- physical meetings
- start your own...pizza place, classroom
+ other organizations
-
+ "These kind of meetings (DC 2600 meeting at Pentagon City
Mall, 1st Fri. of
- every month in the food court, about 5-7pm or so) might
be good places for
- local cypherpunks gatherings as well. I'm sure there
are a lot of other
- such meetings, but the DC and Baltimore ones are the
ones I know of.
- (note that the DC area already meets...)
- Hackers, raves
- regional meetings
3.3.13. "Is the Cypherpunks list monitored? Has it been infiltrated?"
- Unknown. It wouldn't be hard for anyone to be monitoring
the list.
- As to infiltration, no evidence for this. No suspicious
folks showing up at the physical meetings, at least so far
as I can see. (Not a very reliable indication.)
3.3.14. "Why isn't there a recruiting program to increase the number
of Cypherpunks?"
- Good question. The mailing list reached about 500
subscribers a year or so ago and has remained relatively
constant since then; many subscribers learned of the list
and its address in the various articles that appeared.
- Informal organizations often level out in membership
because no staff exists to publicize, recruit, etc. And
size is limited because a larger group loses focus. So,
some stasis is achieved. For us, it may be at the 400-700
level. It seems unlikely that list membership would ever
get into the tens of thousands.
3.3.15. "Why have there been few real achievements in crypto
recently?"
+ Despite the crush of crypto releases--the WinPGPs,
SecureDrives, and dozen other such programs--the fact is
that most of these are straightforward variants on what I
think have been the two major product classes to be
introduced in the last several years"
- PGP, and variants.
- Remailers, and variants.
- These two main classes account for about 98% of all product-
or version-oriented debate on the Net, epitomized by the
zillions of "Where can I find PGP2.6ui for the Amiga?"
sorts of posts.
+ Why is this so? Why have these dominated? What else is
needed?
+ First, PGP gave an incredible impetus to the whole issue
of public use of crypto. It brought crypto to the masses,
or at least to the Net-aware masses. Second, the nearly
simultaneous appearance of remailers (the Kleinpaste/Julf-
style and the Cypherpunks "mix"-style) fit in well with
the sudden awareness about PGP and crypto issues. And
other simultaneous factors appeared:
- the appearance of "Wired" and its spectacular success,
in early 1993
- the Clipper chip firestorm, beginning in April 1993
- the Cypherpunks group got rolling in late 1992,
reaching public visibility in several articles in 1993.
(By the end of '93, we seemed to be a noun, as Bucky
might've said.)
+ But why so little progress in other important areas?
- digital money, despite at least a dozen reported
projects, programs (only a few of which are really
anything like Chaum's "digital cash")
- data havens, information markets, etc.
- money-laundering schemes, etc.
+ What could change this?
- Mosaic, WWW, Web
- A successful digital cash effort
3.4. Beliefs, Goals, Agenda
3.4.1. "Is there a set of beliefs that most Cypherpunks support?"
+ There is nothing official (not much is), but there is an
emergent, coherent set of beliefs which most list members
seem to hold:
* that the government should not be able to snoop into our
affairs
* that protection of conversations and exchanges is a basic
right
* that these rights may need to be secured through
_technology_ rather than through law
* that the power of technology often creates new political
realities (hence the list mantra: "Cypherpunks write
code")
+ Range of Beliefs
- Many are libertarian, most support rights of privacy,
some are more radical in apppoach
3.4.2. "What are Cypherpunks interested in?"
- privacy
- technology
- encryition
- politics
- crypto anarchy
- digital money
- protocols
3.4.3. Personal Privacy and Collapse of Governments
- There seem to be two main reasons people are drawn to
Cypherpunks, besides the general attractiveness of a "cool"
group such as ours. The first reason is _personal privacy_.
That is, tools for ensuring privacy, protection from a
surveillance society, and individual choice. This reason is
widely popular, but is not always compelling (after all,
why worry about personal privacy and then join a list that
has been identified as a "subversive" group by the Feds?
Something to think about.)
- The second major is personal liberty through reducing the
power of governments to coerce and tax. Sort of a digital
Galt's Gulch, as it were. Libertarians and
anarchocapitalists are especially drawn to this vision, a
vision which may bother conventional liberals (when they
realize strong crypto means things counter to welfare,
AFDC, antidiscrimination laws....).
- This second view is more controversial, but is, in my
opinion, what really powers the list. While others may
phrase it differently, most of us realize we are on to
something that will change--and already is changing--the
nature of the balance of power between individuals and
larger entities.
3.4.4. Why is Cypherpunks called an "anarchy"?
- Anarchy means "without a leader" (head). Much more common
than people may think.
- The association with bomb-throwing "anarchists" is
misleading.
3.4.5. Why is there no formal agenda, organization, etc.?
- no voting, no organization to administer such things
- "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
- and it's how it all got started and evolved
- also, nobody to arrest and hassle, no nonsense about
filling out forms and getting tax exemptions, no laws about
campaign law violations (if we were a formal group and
lobbied against Senator Foo, could be hit with the law
limiting "special interests," conceivably)
3.4.6. How are projects proposed and completed?
- If an anarchy, how do things get done?
- The way most things get done: individual actions and market
decisions.
3.4.7. Future Needs for Cyberspace
+ Mark Pesci's ideas for VR and simulations
- distributed, high bandwidth
- a billion users
- spatial ideas....coordinates...servers...holographic
models
- WWW plus rendering engine = spatial VR (Library of
Congress)
- "The Labyrinth"
+ says to avoid head-mounted displays and gloves (bad for
you)
+ instead, "perceptual cybernetics".
- phi--fecks--psi (phi is external world,Fx = fects are
effectuators and sensors, psi is your internal state)
3.4.8. Privacy, Credentials without identity
3.4.9. "Cypherpunks write code"
- "Cypherpunks break the laws they don't like"
- "Don't get mad, get even. Write code."
3.4.10. Digital Free Markets
+ strong crypto changes the nature and visibility of many
economic transactionst, making it very difficult for
governments to interfere or even to enforce laws,
contracts, etc.
- thus, changes in the nature of contract enforcement
+ (Evidence that this is not hopeless can be found in
several places:
- criminal markets, where governments obviously cannot be
used
- international markets, a la "Law Merchant"
- "uttering a check"
- shopping malls in cyberspace...no identifiable national or
regional jurisdiction...overlapping many borders...
+ caveat emptor (though rating agencies, and other filter
agents, may be used by wary customers....ironically,
reputation will matter even more than it now does)
- no ability to repudiate a sale, to be an Indian giver
- in all kinds of information....
3.4.11. The Role of Money
- in monetarizing transactions, access, remailers---digital
postage
3.4.12. Reductions on taxation
- offshore entities already exempt
- tax havens
- cyberspace localization is problematic
3.4.13. Transnationalism
- rules of nations are ignored
3.4.14. Data Havens
- credit, medical, legal, renter, etc.
3.4.15. MOOs, MUDs, SVRs, Habitat cyberspaces
- "True Names" and "Snow Crash"
- What are
+ Habitat....Chip and Randy
- Lucasfilm, Fujitsu
- started as game environment...
- many-user environments
- communications bandwidth is a scarce resource
- object-oriented data representation
+ implementation platform unimportant...range of
capabilities
- pure text to Real ity Engines
- never got as far as fully populating the reality
- "detailed central planning is impossible; don't even try"
- 2-D grammar for layouts
+ "can't trust anyone"
- someone disassembled the code and found a way to make
themselves invisible
- ways to break the system (extra money)
+ future improvements
- multimedia objects, customizable objects, local turfs,
mulitple interfaces
- "Global Cyberspace Infrastructure" (Fujitsu, FINE)
+ more bandwidth means more things can be done
- B-ISDN will allow video on demand, VR, etc.
- protocol specs, Joule (secure concurrent operating
system)
- intereaction spaces, topological (not spatial)
+ Xerox, Pavel Curtis
+ LambdaMOO
- 1200 different users per day, 200 at a time, 5000 total
users
- "social virtual realities"--virtual communities
- how emergent properties emerge
- pseudo-spatial
- rooms, audio, video, multiple screens
- policing, wizards, mediation
- effective telecommuting
- need the richness of real world markets...people can sell
to others
+ Is there a set of rules or basic ideas which can form the
basis of a powerfully replicable system?
- this would allow franchises to be disctrubed around the
world
- networks of servers? distinction between server and
client fades...
- money, commercialization?
- Joule language
3.4.16. "Is personal privacy the main interest of Cypherpunks?"
- Ensuring the _right_ and the _technological feasibility_ is
more of the focus. This often comes up in two contexts:
- 1. Charges of hypocrisy because people either use
pseudonyms or, paradoxically, that they _don't_ use
pseudonyms, digital signatures
3.4.17. "Shouldn't crypto be regulated?"
- Many people make comparisons to the regulation of
automobiles, of the radio spectrum, and even of guns. The
comparison of crypto to guns is especially easy to make,
and especially dangerous.
-
+ A better comparison is "use of crypto = right to speak as
you wish."
- That is, we cannot demand that people speak in a language
or form that is easily understandable by eavesdroppers,
wiretappers, and spies.
+ If I choose to speak to my friends in Latvian, or in
Elihiuish, or in
- triple DES, that's my business. (Times of true war, as
in World War
- II, may be slightly different. As a libertarian, I'm
not advocating
- that, but I understand the idea that in times of war
speaking in code
+ is suspect. We are not in a time of war, and haven't
been.)
-
- Should we have "speech permits"? After all, isn't the
regulation of
+ speech consistent with the regulation of automobiles?
-
- I did a satirical essay along these lines a while back.
I won't
- included it here, though. (My speech permit for satire
expired and I
+ haven't had time to get it renewed.)
-
- In closing, the whole comparison of cryptography to
armaments is
- misleading. Speaking or writing in forms not readily
understandable to
- your enemies, your neighbors, your spouse, the cops, or
your local
- eavesdropper is as old as humanity.
3.4.18. Emphasize the "voluntary" nature of crypto
+ those that don't want privacy, can choose not to use crypto
- just as they can take the locks of their doors, install
wiretaps on their phones, remove their curtains so as not
to interfere with peeping toms and police surveillance
teams, etc.
- as PRZ puts it, they can write all their letters on
postcards, because they have "nothing to hide"
- what we want to make sure doesn't happen is _others_
insisting that we cannot use crypto to maintain our own
privacy
+ "But what if criminals have access to crypto and can keep
secrets?"
- this comes up over and over again
- does this mean locks should not exist, or.....?
3.4.19. "Are most Cypherpunks anarchists?"
- Many are, but probably not most. The term "anarchy" is
often misunderstood.
- As Perry Metzger puts it "Now, it happpens that I am an
anarchist, but that isn't what most people associated with
the term "cypherpunk" believe in, and it isn't fair to
paint them that way -- hell, many people on this mailing
list are overtly hostile to anarchism." [P.M., 1994-07-01]
- comments of Sherry Mayo, others
- But the libertarian streak is undeniably strong. And
libertarians who think about the failure of politics and
the implications of cryptgraphy generally come to the
anarcho-capitalist or crypto-anarchist point of view.
- In any case, the "other side" has not been very vocal in
espousing a consistent ideology that combines strong crypto
and things like welfare, entitlements, and high tax rates.
(I am not condemning them. Most of my leftist friends turn
out to believe in roughly the same things I believe
in...they just attach different labels and have negative
reactions to words like "capitalist.")
3.4.20. "Why is there so much ranting on the list?"
- Arguments go on and on, points get made dozens of times,
flaming escalates. This has gotten to be more of a problem
in recent months. (Not counting the spikes when Detweiler
was around.)
+ Several reasons:
+ the arguments are often matters of opinion, not fact, and
hence people just keep repeating their arguments
- made worse by the fact that many people are too lazy to
do off-line reading, to learn about what they are
expressing an opinion on
- since nothing ever gets resolved, decided, vote upon,
etc., the debates continue
- since anyone is free to speak up at any time, some people
will keep making the same points over and over again,
hoping to win through repetition (I guess)
+ since people usually don't personally know the other
members of the list, this promotes ranting (I've noticed
that the people who know each other, such as the Bay Area
folks, tend not to be as rude to each other...any
sociologist or psychologist would know why this is so
immediately).
+ the worst ranters tend to be the people who are most
isolated from the other members of the list community;
this is generally a well-known phenomenon of the Net
- and is yet more reason for regional Cypherpunks
groups to occasionally meet, to at least make some
social and conversational connections with folks in
their region.
- on the other hand, rudeness is often warranted; people
who assault me and otherwise plan to deprive me of my
property of deserving of death, not just insults [Don't
be worried, there are only a handful of people on this
list I would be happy to see dead, and on none of them
would I expend the $5000 it might take to buy a contract.
Of course, rates could drop.]
3.4.21. The "rejectionist" stance so many Cypherpunks have
- that compromise rarely helps when very basic issues are
involved
- the experience with the NRA trying compromise, only to find
ever-more-repressive laws passed
- the debacle with the EFF and their "EFF Digital Telephony
Bill" ("We couldn't have put this bill together without
your help") shows the corruption of power; I'm ashamed to
have ever been a member of the EFF, and will of course not
be renewing my membership.
- I have jokingly suggested we need a "Popular Front for the
Liberation of Crypto," by analogy with the PFLP.
3.4.22. "Is the Cypherpunks group an illegal or seditious
organization?"
- Well, there are those "Cypherpunk Criminal" t-shirts a lot
of us have...
- Depends on what country you're in.
- Probably in a couple of dozen countries, membership would
be frowned on
- the material may be illegal in other countries
- and many of us advocate things like using strong crypto to
avoid and evade tzxes, to bypass laws we dislike, etc.
3.5. Self-organizing Nature of Cypherpunks
3.5.1. Contrary to what people sometimes claim, there is no ruling
clique of Cypherpunks. Anybody is free to do nearly anything,
just not free to commit others to course of action, or
control the machine resources the list now runs on, or claim
to speak for the "Cypherpunks" as a group (and this last
point is unenforceable except through reptutation and social
repercussions).
3.5.2. Another reason to be glad there is no formal Cypherpunks
structure, ruling body, etc., is that there is then no direct
target for lawsuits, ITAR vioalation charges, defamation or
copyright infringement claims, etc.
3.6. Mechanics of the List
3.6.1. Archives of the Cyperpunks List
- Karl Barrus has a selection of posts at the site
chaos.bsu.edu, available via
gopher. Look in the "Cypherpunks gopher site" directory.
3.6.2. "Why isn't the list sent out in encrypted form?"
- Too much hassle, no additional security, would only make
people jump through extra hoops (which might be useful, but
probably not worth the extra hassle and ill feelings).
- "We did this about 8 years ago at E&S using DEC VMS NOTES.
We used a plain vanilla secret key algorithm and a key
shared by all legitimate members of the group. We could do
it today -- but why bother? If you have a key that
widespread, it's effectively certain that a "wrong person"
(however you define him/her) will have a copy of the key."
[Carl Ellison, Encrypted BBS?, 1993-08-02]
3.6.3. "Why isn't the list moderated?"
- This usually comes up during severe flaming episodes,
notably when Detweiler is on the list in one of his various
personnas. Recently, it has not come up, as things have
been relatively quiet.
+ Moderation will *not* happen
- nobody has the time it takes
- nobody wants the onus
+ hardly consistent with many of our anarchist leanings, is
it?
- (Technically, moderation can be viewed as "my house, my
rules, and hence OK, but I think you get my point.)
- "No, please let's not become a 'moderated' newsgroup. This
would be the end of freedom! This is similar to giving the
police more powers because crime is up. While it is a
tactic to fight off the invaders, a better tactic is
knowledge." [RWGreene@vnet.net, alt.gathering.rainbow, 1994-
07-06]"
3.6.4. "Why isn't the list split into smaller lists?"
- What do you call the list outages?
+ Seriously, several proposals to split the list into pieces
have resulted in not much
- a hardware group...never seen again, that I know of
- a "moderated cryptography" group, ditto
- a DC-Net group...ditto
- several regional groups and meeting planning groups,
which are apparently moribund
- a "Dig Lib" group...ditto
- use Rishab's comment:
+ Reasons are clear: one large group is more successful in
traffic than smaller, low-volume groups...out of sight,
out of mind
- and topics change anyway, so the need for a
"steganography" mailing list (argued vehemently for by
one person, not Romana M., by the way) fades away when
the debate shifts. And so on.
3.6.5. Critical Addresses, Numbers, etc.
+ Cypherpunks archives sites
- soda
- mirror sites
- ftp sites
- PGP locations
- Infobot at Wired
- majordomo@toad.com; "help" as message body
3.6.6. "How did the Cypherpunk remailers appear so quickly?"
- remailers were the first big win...a weekend of Perl
hacking
3.7. Publicity
3.7.1. "What kind of press coverage have the Cypherpunks gotten?"
- " I concur with those who suggest that the solution to the
ignorance manifested in many of the articles concerning the
Net is education. The coverage of the Cypherpunks of late
(at least in the Times) shows me that reasonable accuracy
is possible." [Chris Walsh, news.admin.policy, 1994-07-04]
3.8. Loose Ends
3.8.1. On extending the scope of Cypherpunks to other countres
- a kind of crypto underground, to spread crypto tools, to
help sow discord, to undermine corrupt governments (to my
mind, all governments now on the planet are intrinsically
corrupt and need to be undermined)
- links to the criminal underworlds of these countries is one
gutsy thing to consider....fraught with dangers, but
ultimately destabilizing of governments
4. Goals and Ideology -- Privacy, Freedom, New Approaches
4.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
4.2. SUMMARY: Goals and Ideology -- Privacy, Freedom, New Approaches
4.2.1. Main Points
4.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
- Crypto Anarchy is the logical outgrowth of strong crypto.
4.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
- Vernor Vinge's "True Names"
- David Friedman's "Machinery of Freedom"
4.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
- Most of the list members are libertarians, or leaning in
that direction, so the bias toward this is apparent.
- (If there's a coherent _non_-libertarian ideology, that's
also consistent with supporting strong crypto, I'm not sure
it's been presented.)
4.3. Why a Statement of Ideology?
4.3.1. This is perhaps a controversial area. So why include it? The
main reason is to provide some grounding for the later
comments on many issues.
4.3.2. People should not expect a uniform ideology on this list.
Some of us are anarcho-capitalist radicals (or "crypto
anarchists"), others of us are staid Republicans, and still
others are Wobblies and other assored leftists.
4.4. "Welcome to Cypherpunks"
4.4.1. This is the message each new subscriber to the Cypherpunks
lists gets, by Eric Hughes:
4.4.2. "Cypherpunks assume privacy is a good thing and wish there
were more of it. Cypherpunks acknowledge that those who want
privacy must create it for themselves and not expect
governments, corporations, or other large, faceless
organizations to grant them privacy out of beneficence.
Cypherpunks know that people have been creating their own
privacy for centuries with whispers, envelopes, closed doors,
and couriers. Cypherpunks do not seek to prevent other
people from speaking about their experiences or their
opinions.
"The most important means to the defense of privacy is
encryption. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy.
But to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too
much desire for privacy. Cypherpunks hope that all people
desiring privacy will learn how best to defend it.
"Cypherpunks are therefore devoted to cryptography.
Cypherpunks wish to learn about it, to teach it, to implement
it, and to make more of it. Cypherpunks know that
cryptographic protocols make social structures. Cypherpunks
know how to attack a system and how to defend it.
Cypherpunks know just how hard it is to make good
cryptosystems.
"Cypherpunks love to practice. They love to play with public
key cryptography. They love to play with anonymous and
pseudonymous mail forwarding and delivery. They love to play
with DC-nets. They love to play with secure communications
of all kinds.
"Cypherpunks write code. They know that someone has to write
code to defend privacy, and since it's their privacy, they're
going to write it. Cypherpunks publish their code so that
their fellow cypherpunks may practice and play with it.
Cypherpunks realize that security is not built in a day and
are patient with incremental progress.
"Cypherpunks don't care if you don't like the software they
write. Cypherpunks know that software can't be destroyed.
Cypherpunks know that a widely dispersed system can't be shut
down.
"Cypherpunks will make the networks safe for privacy." [Eric
Hughes, 1993-07-21 version]
4.5. "Cypherpunks Write Code"
4.5.1. "Cypherpunks write code" is almost our mantra.
4.5.2. This has come to be a defining statement. Eric Hughes used it
to mean that Cypherpunks place more importance in actually
changing things, in actually getting working code out, than
in merely talking about how things "ought" to be.
- Eric Hughes statement needed here:
- Karl Kleinpaste, author of one of the early anonymous
posting services (Charcoal) said this about some proposal
made: "If you've got serious plans for how to implement
such a thing, please implement it at least skeletally and
deploy it. Proof by example, watching such a system in
action, is far better than pontification about it."
[Karl_Kleinpaste@cs.cmu.edu, news.admin.policy, 1994-06-30]
4.5.3. "The admonition, "Cypherpunks write code," should be taken
metaphorically. I think "to write code" means to take
unilateral effective action as an individual. That may mean
writing actual code, but it could also mean dumpster diving
at Mycrotronx and anonymously releasing the recovered
information. It could also mean creating an offshore digital
bank. Don't get too literal on us here. What is important
is that Cypherpunks take personal responsibility for
empowering themselves against threats to privacy." [Sandy
Sandfort, 1994-07-08]
4.5.4. A Cypherpunks outlook: taking the abstractions of academic
conferences and making them concrete
- One thing Eric Hughes and I discussed at length (for 3 days
of nearly nonstop talk, in May, 1992) was the glacial rate
of progress in converting the cryptographic primitive
operations of the academic crypto conferences into actual,
workable code. The basic RSA algorithm was by then barely
available, more than 15 years after invention. (This was
before PGP 2.0, and PGP 1.0 was barely available and was
disappointing, with RSA Data Security's various products in
limited niches.) All the neat stuff on digital cash, DC-
Nets, bit commitment, olivioius transfer, digital mixes,
and so on, was completely absent, in terms of avialable
code or "crypto ICs" (to borrow Brad Cox's phrase). If it
took 10-15 years for RSA to really appear in the real
world, how long would it take some of the exciting stuff to
get out?
- We thought it would be a neat idea to find ways to reify
these things, to get actual running code. As it happened,
PGP 2.0 appeared the week of our very first meeting, and
both the Kleinpaste/Julf and Cypherpunks remailers were
quick, if incomplete, implementations of David Chaum's 1981
"digital mixes." (Right on schedule, 11 years later.)
- Sadly, most of the abstractions of cryptology remain
residents of academic space, with no (available)
implementations in the real world. (To be sure, I suspect
many people have cobbled-together versions of many of these
things, in C code, whatever. But their work is more like
building sand castles, to be lost when they graduate or
move on to other projects. This is of course not a problem
unique to cryptology.)
- Today, various toolkits and libraries are under
development. Henry Strickland (Strick) is working on a
toolkit based on John Ousterhout's "TCL" system (for Unix),
and of course RSADSI provides RSAREF. Pr0duct Cypher has
"PGP Tools." Other projects are underway. (My own longterm
interest here is in building objects which act as the
cryptography papers would have them act...building block
objects. For this, I'm looking at Smalltalk of some
flavor.)
- It is still the case that most of the modern crypto papers
discuss theoretical abstractions that are _not even close_
to being implemented as reusable, robust objects or
routines. Closing the gap between theoretical papers and
practical realization is a major Cypherpunk emphasis.
4.5.5. Prototypes, even if fatally flawed, allow for evolutionary
learning and improvement. Think of it as engineering in
action.
4.6. Technological empowerment
4.6.1. (more needed here....)
4.6.2. As Sandy Sandfort notes, "The real point of Cypherpunks is
that it's better to use strong crypto than weak crypto or no
crypto at all. Our use of crypto doesn't have to be totally
bullet proof to be of value. Let *them* worry about the
technicalities while we make sure they have to work harder
and pay more for our encrypted info than they would if it
were in plaintext." [S.S. 1994-07-01]
4.7. Free Speech Issues
4.7.1. Speech
- "Public speech is not a series of public speeches, but
rather one's own
words spoken openly and without shame....I desire a society
where all may speak freely about whatever topic they will.
I desire that all people might be able to choose to whom
they wish to speak and to whom they do not wish to speak.
I desire a society where all people may have an assurance
that their words are directed only at those to whom they
wish. Therefore I oppose all efforts by governments to
eavesdrop and to become unwanted listeners." [Eric Hughes,
1994-02-22]
- "The government has no right to restrict my use of
cryptography in any way. They may not forbid me to use
whatever ciphers I may like, nor may they require me to use
any that I do not like." [Eric Hughes, 1993-06-01]
4.7.2. "Should there be _any_ limits whatsoever on a person's use of
cryptography?"
- No. Using the mathematics of cryptography is merely the
manipulation of symbols. No crime is involved, ipso facto.
- Also, as Eric Hughes has pointed out, this is another of
those questions where the normative "should" or "shouldn't"
invokes "the policeman inside." A better way to look at is
to see what steps people can take to make any question of
"should" this be allowed just moot.
- The "crimes" are actual physical acts like murder and
kidnapping. The fact that crypto may be used by plotters
and planners, thus making detection more difficult, is in
no way different from the possibility that plotters may
speak in an unusual language to each other (ciphers), or
meet in a private home (security), or speak in a soft voice
when in public (steganography). None of these things should
be illegal, and *none of them would be enforceable* except
in the most rigid of police states (and probably not even
there).
- "Crypto is thoughtcrime" is the effect of restricting
cryptography use.
4.7.3. Democracy and censorship
- Does a community have the right to decide what newsgroups
or magazines it allows in its community? Does a nation have
the right to do the same? (Tennessee, Iraq, Iran, France.
Utah?)
- This is what bypasses with crypto are all about: taking
these majoritarian morality decisions out of the hands of
the bluenoses. Direct action to secure freedoms.
4.8. Privacy Issues
4.8.1. "Is there an agenda here beyond just ensuring privacy?"
- Definitely! I think I can safely say that for nearly all
political persuasions on the Cypherpunks list. Left, right,
libertarian, or anarchist, there's much more to to strong
crypto than simple privacy. Privacy qua privacy is fairly
uninteresting. If all one wants is privacy, one can simply
keep to one's self, stay off high-visibility lists like
this, and generally stay out of trouble.
- Many of us see strong crypto as the key enabling technology
for a new economic and social system, a system which will
develop as cyberspace becomes more important. A system
which dispenses with national boundaries, which is based on
voluntary (even if anonymous) free trade. At issue is the
end of governments as we know them today. (Look at
interactions on the Net--on this list, for example--and
you'll see many so-called nationalities, voluntary
interaction, and the almost complete absence of any "laws."
Aside from their being almost no rules per se for the
Cypherpunks list, there are essentially no national laws
that are invokable in any way. This is a fast-growing
trend.)
+ Motivations for Cypherpunks
- Privacy. If maintaining privacy is the main goal, there's
not much more to say. Keep a low profile, protect data,
avoid giving out personal information, limit the number
of bank loans and credit applications, pay cash often,
etc.
- Privacy in activism.
+ New Structures. Using cryptographic constructs to build
new political, economic, and even social structures.
- Political: Voting, polling, information access,
whistleblowing
- Economic: Free markets, information markets, increased
liquidity, black markets
- Social: Cyberspatial communities, True Names
- Publically inspectable algorithms always win out over
private, secret algorithms
4.8.2. "What is the American attitude toward privacy and
encryption?"
+ There are two distinct (and perhaps simultaneously held)
views that have long been found in the American psyche:
- "A man's home is his castle." "Mind your own business."
The frontier and Calvinist sprit of keeping one's
business to one's self.
- "What have you got to hide?" The nosiness of busybodies,
gossiping about what others are doing, and being
suspicious of those who try too hard to hide what they
are doing.
+ The American attitude currently seems to favor privacy over
police powers, as evidenced by a Time-CNN poll:
- "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last
week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more
important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to
preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When
informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed
it." [Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys,"
_TIME_, 1994-03-04.]
- The answer given is clearly a function of how the question
is phrased. Ask folks if they favor "unbreakable
encryption" or "fortress capabilities" for terrorists,
pedophiles, and other malefactors, and they'll likely give
a quite different answer. It is this tack now being taken
by the Clipper folks. Watch out for this!
- Me, I have no doubts.
- As Perry Metzger puts it, "I find the recent disclosures
concerning U.S. Government testing of the effects of
radiation on unknowing human subjects to be yet more
evidence that you simply cannot trust the government with
your own personal safety. Some people, given positions of
power, will naturally abuse those positions, often even if
such abuse could cause severe injury or death. I see little
reason, therefore, to simply "trust" the U.S. government --
and given that the U.S. government is about as good as they
get, its obvious that NO government deserves the blind
trust of its citizens. "Trust us, we will protect you"
rings quite hollow in the face of historical evidence.
Citizens must protect and preserve their own privacy -- the
government and its centralized cryptographic schemes
emphatically cannot be trusted." [P.M., 1994-01-01]
4.8.3. "How is 1994 like 1984?"
- The television ad for Clipper: "Clipper--why 1994 _will_ be
like 1984"
+ As Mike Ingle puts it:
- 1994: Wiretapping is privacy
Secrecy is openness
Obscurity is security
4.8.4. "We anticipate that computer networks will play a more and
more important role in many parts of our lives. But this
increased computerization brings tremendous dangers for
infringing privacy. Cypherpunks seek to put into place
structures which will allow people to preserve their privacy
if they choose. No one will be forced to use pseudonyms or
post anonymously. But it should be a matter of choice how
much information a person chooses to reveal about himself
when he communicates. Right now, the nets don't give you
that much choice. We are trying to give this power to
people." [Hal Finney, 1993-02-23]
4.8.5. "If cypherpunks contribute nothing else we can create a real
privacy advocacy group, advocating means of real self-
empowerment, from crypto to nom de guerre credit cards,
instead of advocating further invasions of our privacy as the
so-called privacy advocates are now doing!" [Jim Hart, 1994-
09-08]
4.9. Education Issues
4.9.1. "How can we get more people to use crypto?"
- telling them about the themes of Cypherpunks
- surveillance, wiretapping, Digital Telephony, Clipper, NSA,
FinCEN, etc....these things tend to scare a lot of folks
- making PGP easier to use, better integration with mailers,
etc.
- (To be frank, convincing others to protect themselves is
not one of my highest priorities. Then why have I written
this megabyte-plus FAQ? Good question. Getting more users
is a general win, for obvious reasons.)
4.9.2. "Who needs to encrypt?"
+ Corporations
- competitors...fax transmissions
+ foreign governments
- Chobetsu, GCHQ, SDECE, Mossad, KGB
+ their own government
- NSA intercepts of plans, investments
+ Activist Groups
- Aryan Nation needs to encrypt, as FBI has announced their
intent to infiltrate and subvert this group
- RU-486 networks
- Amnesty International
+ Terrorists and Drug Dealers
- clearly are clueless at times (Pablo Escobar using a
cellphone!)
- Triads, Russian Mafia, many are becoming crypto-literate
- (I've been appoached-'nuff said)
+ Doctors, lawyers, psychiatrists, etc.
- to preserve records against theft, snooping, casual
examination, etc.
- in many cases, a legal obligation has been attached to
this (notably, medical records)
- the curious situation that many people are essentially
_required_ to encrypt (no other way to ensure standards
are met) and yet various laws exists to limit
encryption...ITAR, Clipper, EES
- (Clipper is a partial answer, if unsatisfactory)
4.9.3. "When should crypto be used?"
- It's an economic matter. Each person has to decide when to
use it, and how. Me, I dislike having to download messages
to my home machine before I can read them. Others use it
routinely.
4.10. Libertarian Issues
4.10.1. A technological approach to freedom and privacy:
- "Freedom is, practically, given as much (or more) by the
tools we can build to protect it, as it is by our ability
to convince others who violently disagree with us not to
attack us. On the Internet we have tools like anon
remailers and PGP that give us a great deal of freedom
from coercion even in the midst of censors. Thus, these
tools piss off fans of centralized information control, the
defenders of the status quo, like nothing else on the
Internet." [ (Nobody), libtech-
l@netcom.com, 1994-06-08]
+ Duncan Frissell, as usual, put it cogently:
- "If I withhold my capital from some country or enterprise
I am not threatening to kill anyone. When a "Democratic
State" decides to do something, it does so with armed
men. If you don't obey, they tend to shoot....[I]f
technological change enhances the powers of individuals,
their power is enhanced no matter what the government
does.
"If the collective is weakened and the individual
strengthened by the fact that I have the power of cheap
guns, cars, computers, telecoms, and crypto then the
collective has been weakened and we should ease the
transition to a society based on voluntary rather than
coerced interaction.
"Unless you can figure out a new, improved way of
controlling others; you have no choice." [D.F., Decline
and Fall, 1994-06-19]
4.10.2. "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
[Benjamin Franklin]
4.10.3. a typical view of government
- "As I see it, it's always a home for bullies masquerading
as a collective defense. Sometimes it actually it actually
has to perform its advertised defense function. Like naked
quarks,
purely defensive governments cannot exist. They are
bipolar by nature, with some poles (i.e., the bullying
part) being "more equal than others." [Sandy Sandfort, 1994-
09-06]
4.10.4. Sadly, several of our speculative scenarios for various laws
have come to pass. Even several of my own, such as:
- "(Yet Another May Prediction Realized)...The text of a
"digital stalking bill" was just sent to Cyberia-l." [L.
Todd Masco, 1994-08-31] (This was a joking prediction I
made that "digital stalking" would soon be a crime; there
had been news articles about the horrors of such
cyberspatial stalkings, regardless of there being no real
physical threats, so this move is not all that surprising.
Not surprising in an age when free speech gets outlawed as
"assault speech.")
4.10.5. "Don't tread on me."
4.10.6. However, it's easy to get too negative on the situation, to
assume that a socialist state is right around the corner. Or
that a new Hitler will come to power. These are unlikely
developments, and not only because of strong crypto.
Financial markets are putting constraints on how fascist a
government can get...the international bond markets, for
example, will quickly react to signs like this. (This is the
theory, at least.)
4.10.7. Locality of reference, cash, TANSTAAFL, privacy
- closure, local computation, local benefits
- no accounting system needed
- markets clear
- market distortions like rationing, coupons, quotas, all
require centralized record-keeping
- anything that ties economic transactions to identity
(rationing, entitlements, insurance) implies identity-
tracking, credentials, etc.
+ Nonlocality also dramatically increases the opportunities
for fraud, for scams and con jobs
- because something is being promised for future delivery
(the essence of many scams) and is not verifiable locally
- because "trust" is invoked
- Locality also fixes the "policeman inside" problem: the
costs of decisions are borne by the decider, not by others.
4.11. Crypto Anarchy
4.11.1. The Crypto Anarchy Principle: Strong crypto permits
unbreakable encrypion, unforgeable signatures, untraceable
electronic messages, and unlinkable pseudonomous identities.
This ensures that some transactions and communications can be
entered into only voluntarily. External force, law, and
regulation cannot be applied. This is "anarchy," in the sense
of no outside rulers and laws. Voluntary arrangements, back-
stopped by voluntarily-arranged institutions like escrow
services, will be the only form of rule. This is "crypto
anarchy."
4.11.2. crypto allows a return to contracts that governments cannot
breach
- based on reputation, repeat business
- example: ordering illegal material untraceably and
anonymously,,,governments are powerless to do anything
- private spaces, with the privacy enforced via cryptographic
permissions (access credentials)
- escrows (bonds)
4.11.3. Technological solutions over legalistic regulations
+ Marc Ringuette summarized things nicely:
- "What we're after is some "community standards" for
cyberspace, and what I'm suggesting is the fairly
libertarian standard that goes like this:
" Prefer technological solutions and self-protection
solutions
over rule-making, where they are feasible.
"This is based on the notion that the more rules there
are, the more people will call for the "net police" to
enforce them. If we can encourage community standards
which emphasize a prudent level of self-protection, then
we'll be able to make do with fewer rules and a less
intrusive level of policing."[Marc Ringuette, 1993-03-14]
+ Hal Finney has made cogent arguments as to why we should
not become too complacent about the role of technology vis-
a-vis politics. He warns us not to grow to confident:
- "Fundamentally, I believe we will have the kind of
society that most people want. If we want freedom and
privacy, we must persuade others that these are worth
having. There are no shortcuts. Withdrawing into
technology is like pulling the blankets over your head.
It feels good for a while, until reality catches up. The
next Clipper or Digital Telephony proposal will provide a
rude awakening." [Hal Finney, POLI: Politics vs
Technology, 1994-01-02]
- "The idea here is that the ultimate solution to the low
signal-to-noise ratio on the nets is not a matter of
forcing people to "stand behind their words". People can
stand behind all kinds of idiotic ideas. Rather, there
will need to be developed better systems for filtering news
and mail, for developing "digital reputations" which can be
stamped on one's postings to pass through these smart
filters, and even applying these reputations to pseudonyms.
In such a system, the fact that someone is posting or
mailing pseudonymously is not a problem, since nuisance
posters won't be able to get through." [Hal Finney, 1993-
02-23]
4.11.4. Reputations
4.11.5. I have a moral outlook that many will find unacceptable or
repugnant. To cut to the chase: I support the killing of
those who break contracts, who steal in serious enough ways,
and who otherwise commit what I think of as crimes.
+ I don't mean this abstractly. Here's an example:
- Someone is carrying drugs. He knows what he's involved
in. He knows that theft is punishable by death. And yet
he steals some of the merchandise.
- Dealers understand that they cannot tolerate this, that
an example must be made, else all of their employees will
steal.
- Understand that I'm not talking about the state doing the
killing, nor would I do the killing. I'm just saying such
things are the natural enforcement mechanism for such
markets. Realpolitik.
- (A meta point: the drug laws makes things this way.
Legalize all drugs and the businesses would be more like
"ordinary" businesses.)
- In my highly personal opinion, many people, including most
Congressrodents, have committed crimes that earn them the
death penalty; I will not be sorry to see anonymous
assassination markets used to deal with them.
4.11.6. Increased espionage will help to destroy nation-state-empires
like the U.S., which has gotten far too bloated and far too
dependent on throwing its weight around; nuclear "terrorism"
may knock out a few cities, but this may be a small price to
pay to undermine totally the socialist welfare states that
have launched so many wars this century.
4.12. Loose Ends
4.12.1. "Why take a "no compromise" stance?"
- Compromise often ends up in the death of a thousand cuts.
Better to just take a rejectionist stance.
- The National Rifle Association (NRA) learned this lesson
the hard way. EFF may eventually learn it; right now they
appear to be in the "coopted by the power center" mode,
luxuriating in their inside-the-Beltway access to the Veep,
their flights on Air Force One, and their general
schmoozing with the movers and shakers...getting along by
going along.
- Let's not compromise on basic issues. Treat censorship as a
problem to be routed around (as John Gilmore suggests), not
as something that needs to be compromised on. (This is
directed at rumblings about how the Net needs to "police
itself," by the "reasonable" censorship of offensive posts,
by the "moderation" of newsgroups, etc. What should concern
us is the accomodation of this view by well-meaning civil
liberties groups, which are apparently willing to play a
role in this "self-policing" system. No thanks.)
- (And since people often misunderstand this point, I'm not
saying private companies can't set whatever policies they
wish, that moderated newsgroups can't be formed, etc.
Private arrangements are just that. The issue is when
censorship is forced on those who have no other
obligations. Government usually does this, often aided and
abetted by corporations and lobbying groups. This is what
we need to fight. Fight by routing around, via technology.)
4.12.2. The inherent evils of democracy
- To be blunt about it, I've come to despise the modern
version of democracy we have. Every issue is framed in
terms of popular sentiment, in terms of how the public
would vote. Mob rule at its worst.
- Should people be allowed to wear blue jeans? Put it to a
vote. Can employers have a policy on blue jeans? Pass a
law. Should health care be provided to all? Put it to a
vote. And so on, whittling away basic freedoms and rights.
A travesty. The tyranny of the majority.
- De Toqueville warned of this when he said that the American
experiment in democracy would last only until citizens
discovered they could pick the pockets of their neighbors
at the ballot box.
- But maybe we can stop this nonsense. I support strong
crypto (and its eventual form, crypto anarchy) because it
undermines this form of democracy. It takes some (and
perhaps many) transactions out of the realm of popularity
contests, beyond the reach of will of the herd. (No, I am
not arguing there will be a complete phase change. As the
saying goes, "You can't eat cyberspace." But a lot of
consulting, technical work, programming, etc., can in fact
be done with crypto anarchic methods, with the money gained
transferred in a variety of ways into the "real world."
More on this elsewhere.)
+ Crypto anarchy effectively allows people to pick and choose
which laws they support, at least in cyberspatial contexts.
It empowers people to break the local bonds of their
majoritarian normative systems and decide for themselves
which laws are moral and which are bullshit.
- I happen to have faith that most people will settle on a
relatively small number of laws that they'll (mostly)
support, a kind of Schelling point in legal space.
4.12.3. "Is the Cypherpunks agenda _too extreme_?"
- Bear in mind that most of the "Cypherpunks agenda," to the
extent we can identify it, is likely to provoke ordinary
citizens into _outrage_. Talk of anonymous mail, digital
money, money laundering, information markets, data havens,
undermining authority, transnationalism, and all the rest
(insert your favorite idea) is not exactly mainstream.
4.12.4. "Crypto Anarchy sounds too wild for me."
- I accept that many people will find the implications of
crypto anarchy (which follows in turn from the existence of
strong cryptography, via the Crypto Anarchy Principle) to
be more than they can accept.
- This is OK (not that you need my OK!). The house of
Cypherpunks has many rooms.
5. Cryptology
5.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
5.2. SUMMARY: Cryptology
5.2.1. Main Points
- gaps still exist here...I treated this as fairly low
priority, given the wealth of material on cryptography
5.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
- detailed crypto knowledge is not needed to understand many
of the implications, but it helps to know the basics (it
heads off many of the most wrong-headed interpretations)
- in particular, everyone should learn enough to at least
vaguely understand how "blinding" works
5.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
+ a dozen or so major books
- Schneier, "Applied Cryptography"--is practically
"required reading"
- Denning
- Brassard
- Simmons
- Welsh, Dominic
- Salomaa
- "CRYPTO" Proceedings
- Other books I can take or leave
- many ftp sites, detailed in various places in this doc
- sci.crypt, alt.privacy.pgp, etc.
- sci.crypt.research is a new group, and is moderated, so it
should have some high-quality, technical posts
- FAQs on sci.crypt, from RSA, etc.
- Dave Banisar of EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information
Center) reports: "...we have several hundred files on
encryption available via ftp/wais/gopher/WWW from cpsr.org
/cpsr/privacy/crypto." [D.B., sci.crypt, 1994-06-30]
5.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
- details of algorithms would fill several books...and do
- hence, will not cover crypto in depth here (the main focus
of this doc is the implications of crypto, the
Cypherpunkian aspects, the things not covered in crypto
textbooks)
- beware of getting lost in the minutiae, in the details of
specific algorithms...try to keep in the mind the
_important_ aspects of any system
5.3. What this FAQ Section Will Not Cover
5.3.1. Why a section on crypto when so many other sources exist?
- A good question. I'll be keeping this section brief, as
many textbooks can afford to do a much better job here than
I can.
- not just for those who read number theory books with one
hand
5.3.2. NOTE: This section may remain disorganized, at least as
compared to some of the later sections. Many excellent
sources on crypto exist, including readily available FAQs
(sci.crypt, RSADSI FAQ) and books. Schneier's books is
especially recommended, and should be on _every_ Cypherpunk's
bookshelf.
5.4. Crypto Basics
5.4.1. "What is cryptology?"
- we see crypto all around us...the keys in our pockets, the
signatures on our driver's licenses and other cards, the
photo IDs, the credit cards
+ cryptography or cryptology, the science of secret
writing...but it's a lot more...consider I.D. cards, locks
on doors, combinations to safes, private
information...secrecy is all around us
- some say this is bad--the tension between "what have you
got to hide?" and "none of your business"
- some exotic stuff: digital money, voting systems, advanced
software protocols
- of importance to protecting privacy in a world of
localizers (a la Bob and Cherie), credit cards, tags on
cars, etc....the dossier society
+ general comments on cryptography
- chain is only as strong as its weakest link
- assume opponnent knows everything except the secret key
-
- Crypto is about economics
+ Codes and Ciphers
+ Simple Codes
- Code Books
+ Simple Ciphers
+ Substitution Ciphers (A=C, B=D, etc.)
- Caesar Shift (blocks)
+ Keyword Ciphers
+ VigenŹre (with Caesar)
+ Rotor Machines
- Hagelin
- Enigma
- Early Computers (Turing, Colossus)
+ Modern Ciphers
+ 20th Century
+ Private Key
+ One-Time Pads (long strings of random numbers,
shared by both parties)
+ not breakable even in principle, e.g., a one-time
pad with random characters selected by a truly
random process (die tosses, radioactive decay,
certain types of noise, etc.)
- and ignoring the "breakable by break-ins"
approach of stealing the one-time pad, etc.
("Black bag cryptography")
- Computer Media (Floppies)
+ CD-ROMs and DATs
- "CD ROM is a terrible medium for the OTP key
stream. First, you want exactly two copies of
the random stream. CD ROM has an economic
advantage only for large runs. Second, you want
to destroy the part of the stream already used.
CD ROM has no erase facilities, outside of
physical destruction of the entire disk."
[Bryan G. Olson, sci.crypt, 1994-08-31]
+ DES--Data Encryption Standard
- Developed from IBM's Lucifer, supported by NSA
- a standard since 1970s
+ But is it "Weak"?
+ DES-busting hardware and software studied
+ By 1990, still cracked
- But NSA/NIST has ordered a change
+ Key Distribution Problem
+ Communicating with 100 other people means
distributing and securing 100 keys
- and each of those 100 must keep their 100 keys
secure
- no possibility of widespread use
+ Public Key
+ 1970s: Diffie, Hellman, Merkle
+ Two Keys: Private Key and Public Key
+ Anybody can encrypt a message to Receiver with
Receiver's PUBLIC key, but only the Receiver's
PRIVATE key can decrypt the message
+ Directories of public keys can be published
(solves the key distribution problem)
+ Approaches
+ One-Way Functions
- Knapsack (Merkle, Hellman)
+ RSA (Rivest, Shamir, Adleman)
- relies on difficulty of factoring
large numbers (200 decimal digits)
- believed to be "NP-hard"
+ patented and licensed to "carefully
selected" customers
- RSA, Fiat-Shamir, and other
algorithms are not freely usable
- search for alternatives continues
5.4.2. "Why does anybody need crypto?"
+ Why the Need
- electronic communications...cellular phones, fax
machines, ordinary phone calls are all easily
intercepted...by foreign governments, by the NSA, by
rival drug dealers, by casual amateurs
+ transactions being traced....credit card receipts,
personal checks, I.D. cards presented at time of
purchase...allows cross-referencing, direct mail data
bases, even government raids on people who buy greenhouse
supplies!
- in a sense, encryption and digital money allows a
return to cash
- Why do honest people need encryption? Because not
everyone is honest, and this applies to governments as
well. Besides, some things are no one else's business.
- Why does anybody need locks on doors? Why aren't all
diaries available for public reading?
+ Whit Diffie, one of the inventors of public key
cryptography (and a Cypherpunk) points out that human
interaction has largely been predicated on two important
aspects:
- that you are who you say you are
- expectation of privacy in private communications
- Privacy exists in various forms in various cultures. But
even in police states, certain concepts of privacy are
important.
- Trust is not enough...one may have opponents who will
violate trust if it seems justified
+ The current importance of crypto is even more striking
+ needed to protect privacy in cyberspace, networks, etc.
- many more paths, links, interconnects
- read Vinge's "True Names" for a vision
+ digital money...in a world of agents, knowbots, high
connectivity
- (can't be giving out your VISA number for all these
things)
+ developing battle between:
- privacy advocates...those who want privacy
- government agencies...FBI, DOJ, DEA, FINCEN, NSA
+ being fought with:
- attempts to restrict encryption (S.266, never passed)
- Digital Telephony Bill, $10K a day fine
- trial balloons to require key registration
- future actions
+ honest people need crypto because there are dishonest
people
- and there may be other needs for privacy
- Phil Zimmerman's point about sending all mail, all letters,
on postcards--"What have you got to hide?" indeed!
- the expectation of privacy in out homes and in phone
conversations
+ Whit Diffie's main points:
+ proving who you say you are...signatures, authentications
- like "seals" of the past
- protecting privacy
- locks and keys on property and whatnot
+ the three elements that are central to our modern view of
liberty and privacy (a la Diffie)
- protecting things against theft
- proving who we say we are
- expecting privacy in our conversations and writings
5.4.3. What's the history of cryptology?
5.4.4. Major Classes of Crypto
- (these sections will introduce the terms in context, though
complete definitions will not be given)
+ Encryption
- privacy of messages
- using ciphers and codes to protect the secrecy of
messages
- DES is the most common symmetric cipher (same key for
encryption and decryption)
- RSA is the most common asymmetric cipher (different keys
for encryption and decryption)
+ Signatures and Authentication
- proving who you are
- proving you signed a document (and not someone else)
+ Authentication
+ Seals
+ Signatures (written)
+ Digital Signatures (computer)
- Example: Numerical codes on lottery tickets
+ Using Public Key Methods (see below)
- Digital Credentials (Super Smartcards)
- Tamper-responding Systems
+ Credentials
- ID Cards, Passports, etc.
+ Biometric Security
- Fingerprints, Retinal Scans, DNA, etc.
+ Untraceable Mail
- untraceable sending and receiving of mail and messages
- focus: defeating eavesdroppers and traffic analysis
- DC protocol (dining cryptographers)
+ Cryptographic Voting
- focus: ballot box anonymity
- credentials for voting
- issues of double voting, security, robustness, efficiency
+ Digital Cash
- focus: privacy in transactions, purchases
- unlinkable credentials
- blinded notes
- "digital coins" may not be possible
+ Crypto Anarchy
- using the above to evade gov't., to bypass tax
collection, etc.
- a technological solution to the problem of too much
government
+ Security
+ Locks
- Key Locks
+ Combination Locks
- Cardkey Locks
+ Tamper-responding Systems (Seals)
+ Also known as "tamper-proof" (misleading)
- Food and Medicine Containers
- Vaults, Safes (Alarms)
+ Weapons, Permissive Action Links
- Nuclear Weapons
- Arms Control
- Smartcards
- Currency, Checks
+ Cryptographic Checksums on Software
- But where is it stored? (Can spoof the system by
replacing the whole package)
+ Copy Protection
- Passwords
- Hardware Keys ("dongles")
- Call-in at run-time
+ Access Control
- Passwords, Passphrases
- Biometric Security, Handwritten Signatures
- For: Computer Accounts, ATMs, Smartcards
5.4.5. Hardware vs. Software
- NSA says only hardware implementations can really be
considered secure, and yet most Cypherpunks and ordinary
crypto users favor the sofware approach
- Hardware is less easily spoofable (replacement of modules)
- Software can be changed more rapidly, to make use of newer
features, faster modules, etc.
- Different cultures, with ordinary users (many millions)
knowing they are less likely to have their systems black-
bag spoofed (midnight engineering) than are the relatively
fewer and much more sensitive military sites.
5.4.6. "What are 'tamper-resistant modules' and why are they
important?"
- These are the "tamper-proof boxes" of yore: display cases,
vaults, museum cases
- that give evidence of having been opened, tampered with,
etc.
+ modern versions:
- display cases
- smart cards
+ chips
- layers of epoxy, abrasive materials, fusible links,
etc.
- (goal is to make reverse engineering much more
expensive)
- nuclear weapon "permissive action links" (PALs)
5.4.7. "What are "one way functions"?"
- functions with no inverses
- crypto needs functions that are seemingly one-way, but
which actually have an inverse (though very hard to find,
for example)
- one-way function, like "bobbles" (Vinge's "Marooned in
Realtime")
5.4.8. When did modern cryptology start?
+ "What are some of the modern applications of cryptology?"
+ "Zero Knowledge Interactive Proof Systems" (ZKIPS)
- since around 1985
- "minimum disclosure proofs"
+ proving that you know something without actually
revealing that something
+ practical example: password
+ can prove you have the password without actually
typing it in to computer
- hence, eavesdroppers can't learn your password
- like "20 questions" but more sophisticated
- abstract example: Hamiltonian circuit of a graph
+ Digital Money
+ David Chaum: "RSA numbers ARE money"
- checks, cashiers checks, etc.
- can even know if attempt is made to cash same check
twice
+ so far, no direct equivalent of paper currency or
coins
- but when combined with "reputation-based systems,"
there may be
+ Credentials
+ Proofs of some property that do not reveal more than
just that property
- age, license to drive, voting rights, etc.
- "digital envelopes"
+ Fiat-Shamir
- passports
+ Anonymous Voting
- protection of privacy with electronic voting
- politics, corporations, clubs, etc.
- peer review of electronic journals
- consumer opinions, polls
+ Digital Pseudonyms and Untraceable E-Mail
+ ability to adopt a digital pseudonym that is:
- unforgeable
- authenticatable
- untraceable
- Vinge's "True Names" and Card's "Ender's Game"
+ Bulletin Boards, Samizdats, and Free Speech
+ banned speech, technologies
- e.g., formula for RU-486 pill
- bootleg software, legally protected material
+ floating opinions without fears for professional
position
- can even later "prove" the opinions were yours
+ "The Labyrinth"
- store-and-forward switching nodes
+ each with tamper-responding modules that decrypt
incoming messages
+ accumulate some number (latency)
+ retransmit to next address
- and so on....
+ relies on hardware and/or reputations
+ Chaum claims it can be done solely in software
- "Dining Cryptographers"
5.4.9. What is public key cryptography?
5.4.10. Why is public key cryptography so important?
+ The chief advantage of public keys cryptosystems over
conventional symmetric key (one key does both encryption
and decryption) is one _connectivity_ to recipients: one
can communicate securely with people without exchanging key
material.
- by looking up their public key in a directory
- by setting up a channel using Diffie-Hellman key exchange
(for example)
5.4.11. "Does possession of a key mean possession of *identity*?"
- If I get your key, am I you?
- Certainly not outside the context of the cryptographic
transaction. But within the context of a transaction, yes.
Additional safeguards/speedbumps can be inserted (such as
biometric credentials, additional passphrases, etc.), but
these are essentially part of the "key," so the basic
answer remains "yes." (There are periodically concerns
raised about this, citing the dangers of having all
identity tied to a single credential, or number, or key.
Well, there are ways to handle this, such as by adopting
protocols that limit one's exposure, that limits the amount
of money that can be withdrawn, etc. Or people can adopt
protocols that require additional security, time delays,
countersigning, etc.)
+ This may be tested in court soon enough, but the answer for
many contracts and crypto transactions will be that
possession of key = possession of identity. Even a court
test may mean little, for the types of transactions I
expect to see.
- That is, in anonymous systems, "who ya gonna sue?"
- So, guard your key.
5.4.12. What are digital signatures?
+ Uses of Digital Signatures
- Electronic Contracts
- Voting
- Checks and other financial instruments (similar to
contracts)
- Date-stamped Transactions (augmenting Notary Publics)
5.4.13. Identity, Passports, Fiat-Shamir
- Murdoch, is-a-person, national ID cards, surveillance
society
+ "Chess Grandmaster Problem" and other Frauds and Spoofs
- of central importance to proofs of identity (a la Fiat-
Shamir)
- "terrorist" and "Mafia spoof" problems
5.4.14. Where else should I look?
5.4.15. Crypto, Technical
+ Ciphers
- traditional
- one-time pads, Vernams ciphers, information-theoretically
secure
+ "I Have a New Idea for a Cipher---Should I Discuss it
Here?"
- Please don't. Ciphers require careful analysis, and
should be in paper form (that is, presented in a
detailed paper, with the necessary references to show
that due diligence was done, the equations, tables,
etc. The Net is a poor substitute.
- Also, breaking a randomly presented cipher is by no
means trivial, even if the cipher is eventually shown
to be weak. Most people don't have the inclination to
try to break a cipher unless there's some incentive,
such as fame or money involved.
- And new ciphers are notoriously hard to design. Experts
are the best folks to do this. With all the stuff
waiting to be done (described here), working on a new
cipher is probably the least effective thing an amateur
can do. (If you are not an amateur, and have broken
other people's ciphers before, then you know who you
are, and these comments don't apply. But I'll guess
that fewer than a handful of folks on this list have
the necessary background to do cipher design.)
- There are a vast number of ciphers and systems, nearly
all of no lasting significance. Untested, undocumented,
unused--and probably unworthy of any real attention.
Don't add to the noise.
- What is DES and can it be broken?
+ ciphers
- RC4, stream cipher
+ DolphinEncrypt
-
+ "Last time Dolphin Encrypt reared its insecure head
in this forum,
- these same issues came up. The cipher that DE uses
is not public and
- was not designed by a person of known
cryptographicc competence. It
- should therefore be considered extremely weak.
+ RSA
- What is RSA?
- Who owns or controls the RSA patents?
- Can RSA be broken?
- What alternatives to RSA exist?
+ One-Way Functions
- like diodes, one-way streets
- multiplying two large numbers together is
easy....factoring the product is often very hard
- (this is not enough for a usable cipher, as the recipient
must be able to perform the reverse operation..it turns
out that "trapdoors" can be found)
- Digital Signatures
+ Digital Cash
- What is digital cash?
- How does digital cash differ from VISA and similar
electronic systems?
- Clearing vs. Doublespending Detection
- Zero Knowledge
- Mixes and Remailers
- Dining Cryptographers
+ Steganography
- invisible ink
- microdots
- images
- sound files
+ Random Number Generators
+ von Neumann quote about living in a state of sin
- also paraphrased (I've heard) to include _analog_
methods, presumably because the nonrepeating (form an
initial seed/start) nature makes repeating experiments
impossible
+ Blum-Blum-Shub
+ How it Works
- "The Blum-Blum-Shub PRNG is really very simple.
There is source floating around on the crypto ftp
sites, but it is a set of scripts for the Unix bignum
calculator "bc", plus some shell scripts, so it is
not very portable.
"To create a BBS RNG, choose two random primes p and
q which are congruent to 3 mod 4. Then the RNG is
based on the iteration x = x*x mod n. x is
initialized as a random seed. (x should be a
quadratic residue, meaning that it is the square of
some number mod n, but that can be arranged by
iterating the RNG once before using its output.)"
[Hal Finney, 1994-05-14]
- Look for blum-blum-shub-strong-randgen.shar and related
files in pub/crypt/other at ripem.msu.edu. (This site
is chock-full of good stuff. Of course, only Americans
are allowed to use these random number generators, and
even they face fines of $500,000 and imprisonment for
up to 5 years for inappopriate use of random numbers.)
- source code at ripem ftp site
- "If you don't need high-bandwidth randomness, there are
several good PRNG, but none of them run fast. See the
chapter on PRNG's in "Cryptology and Computational
Number Theory"." [Eric Hughes, 1994-04-14]
+ "What about hardware random number generators?"
+ Chips are available
-
+ "Hughes Aircraft also offers a true non-deterministic
chip (16 pin DIP).
- For more info contact me at kephart@sirena.hac.com"
<7 April 94, sci.crypt>
+ "Should RNG hardware be a Cypherpunks project?"
- Probably not, but go right ahead. Half a dozen folks
have gotten all fired up about this, proposed a project-
-then let it drop.
- can use repeated applications of a cryptographic has
function to generate pretty damn good PRNs (the RSAREF
library has hooks for this)
+ "I need a pretty good random number generator--what
should I use?"
- "While Blum-Blum-Shub is probably the cool way to go,
RSAREF uses repeated iterations of MD5 to generate its
pseudo-randoms, which can be reasonably secure and use
code you've probably already got hooks from perl
for.[BillStewart,1994-04-15]
+ Libraries
- Scheme code: ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-
repository/scm/rand.scm
+ P and NP and all that jazz
- complexity, factoring,
+ can quantum mechanics help?
- probably not
+ Certification Authorities
- hierarchy vs. distributed web of trust
- in hierarchy, individual businesses may set themselves
up as CAs, as CommerceNet is talking about doing
+ Or, scarily, the governments of the world may insist that
they be "in the loop"
- several ways to do this: legal system invocation, tax
laws, national security....I expect the legal system to
impinge on CAs and hence be the main way that CAs are
partnered with the government
- I mention this to give people some chance to plan
alternatives, end-runs
- This is one of the strongest reasons to support the
decoupling of software from use (that is, to reject the
particular model RSADSI is now using)
5.4.16. Randomness
- A confusing subject to many, but also a glorious subject
(ripe with algorithms, with deep theory, and readily
understandable results).
+ Bill Stewart had a funny comment in sci.crypt which also
shows how hard it is to know if something's really random
or not: "I can take a simple generator X[i] = DES( X[i-1],
K ), which will produce nice random white noise, but you
won't be able to see that it's non-random unless you rent
time on NSA's DES-cracker." [B.S. 1994-09-06]
- In fact, many seemingly random strings are actually
"cryptoregular": they are regular, or nonrandom, as soon
as one uses the right key. Obviously, most strings used
in crypto are cryptoregular in that they _appear_ to be
random, and pass various randomness measures, but are
not.
+ "How can the randomness of a bit string be measured?"
- It can roughly be estimated by entropy measures, how
compressible it is (by various compression programs),
etc.
- It's important to realize that measures of randomness
are, in a sense, "in the eye of the beholder"--there just
is no proof that a string is random...there's always room
for cleverness, if you will
+ Chaitin-Kolmogoroff complexity theory makes this clearer.
To use someone else's words:
- "Actually, it can't be done. The consistent measure of
entropy for finite objects like a string or a (finite)
series of random numbers is the so-called ``program
length complexity''. This is defined as the length of
the shortest program for some given universal Turing
machine
which computes the string. It's consistent in the
sense that it has the familiar properties of
``ordinary'' (Shannon) entropy. Unfortunately, it's
uncomputable: there's no algorithm which, given an
arbitrary finite string S, computes the program-length
complexity of S.
Program-length complexity is well-studied in the
literature. A good introductory paper is ``A Theory of
Program Size Formally Identical to Information Theory''
by G. J. Chaitin, _Journal of the ACM_, 22 (1975)
reprinted in Chaitin's book _Information Randomness &
Incompleteness_, World Scientific Publishing Co.,
1990." [John E. Kreznar, 1993-12-02]
+ "How can I generate reasonably random numbers?"
- I say "reasonably" because of the point above: no number
or sequence is provably "random." About the best that can
be said is that a number of string is the result of a
process we call "random." If done algorithmically, and
deterministically, we call this process "pseudo-random."
(And pseudorandom is usually more valuable than "really
random" because we want to be able to generate the same
sequence repeatedly, to repeat experiments, etc.)
5.4.17. Other crypto and hash programs
+ MDC, a stream cipher
- Peter Gutman, based on NIST Secure Hash Algorithm
- uses longer keys than IDEA, DES
- MD5
- Blowfish
- DolphinEncrypt
5.4.18. RSA strength
- casual grade, 384 bits, 100 MIPS-years (Paul Leyland, 3-31-
94)
- RSA-129, 425 bits, 4000 MIPS-years
- 512 bits...20,000 MIPS-years
- 1024 bits...
5.4.19. Triple DES
- "It involves three DES cycles, in encrypt-decrypt-encrypt
order. THe keys used may be either K1/K2/K3 or K1/K2/K1.
The latter is sometimes caled "double-DES". Combining
two DES operations like this requires twice as much work to
break as one DES, and a lot more storage. If you have the
storage, it just adds one bit to the effective key size. "
[Colin Plumb, colin@nyx10.cs.du.edu, sci.crypt, 4-13-94]
5.4.20. Tamper-resistant modules (TRMs) (or tamper-responding)
+ usually "tamper-indicating", a la seals
- very tough to stop tampering, but relatively easy to see
if seal has been breached (and then not restored
faithfully)
- possession of the "seal" is controlled...this is the
historical equivalent to the "private key" in a digital
signature system, with the technological difficulty of
forging the seal being the protection
+ usually for crypto. keys and crypto. processing
- nuclear test monitoring
- smart cards
- ATMs
+ one or more sensors to detect intrusion
- vibration (carborundum particles)
- pressure changes (a la museum display cases)
- electrical
- stressed-glass (Corning, Sandia)
+ test ban treaty verification requires this
- fiber optic lines sealing a missile...
- scratch patterns...
- decals....
+ Epoxy resins
- a la Intel in 1970s (8086)
+ Lawrence Livermore: "Connoisseur Project"
- gov't agencies using this to protect against reverse
engineering, acquisition of keys, etc.
+ can't stop a determined effort, though
- etches, solvents, plasma ashing, etc.
- but can cause cost to be very high (esp. if resin
formula is varied frequently, so that "recipe" can't be
logged)
+ can use clear epoxy with "sparkles" in the epoxy and
careful 2-position photography used to record pattern
- perhaps with a transparent lid?
+ fiber optic seal (bundle of fibers, cut)
- bundle of fibers is looped around device, then sealed and
cut so that about half the fibers are cut; the pattern of
lit and
unlit fibers is a signature, and is extremely difficult
to reproduce
- nanotechnology may be used (someday)
5.4.21. "What are smart cards?"
- Useful for computer security, bank transfers (like ATM
cards), etc.
- may have local intelligence (this is the usual sense)
- microprocessors, observor protocol (Chaum)
+ Smart cards and electronic funds transfer
- Tamper-resistant modules
+ Security of manufacturing
- some variant of "cut-and-choose" inspection of
premises
+ Uses of smart cards
- conventional credit card uses
- bill payment
- postage
- bridge and road tolls
- payments for items received electronically (not
necessarily anonymously)
5.5. Cryptology-Technical, Mathematical
5.5.1. Historical Cryptography
+ Enigma machines
- cracked by English at Bletchley Park
- a secret until mid-1970s
+ U.K. sold hundreds of seized E. machines to embassies,
governments, even corporations, in late 1940s, early
1950s
- could then crack what was being said by allies
+ Hagelin, Boris (?)
- U.S. paid him to install trapdoors, says Kahn
+ his company, Crypto A.G., was probably an NSA front
company
- Sweden, then U.S., then Sweden, then Zug
- rotor systems cracked
5.5.2. Public-key Systems--HISTORY
+ Inman has admitted that NSA had a P-K concept in 1966
- fits with Dominik's point about sealed cryptosystem boxes
with no way to load new keys
- and consistent with NSA having essentially sole access to
nation's top mathematicians (until Diffies and Hellmans
foreswore government funding, as a result of the anti-
Pentagon feelings of the 70s)
- Merkle's "puzzle" ideas, circa mid-70s
- Diffie and Hellman
- Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman
5.5.3. RSA and Alternatives to RSA
+ RSA and other P-K patents are strangling development and
dissemination of crypto systems
- perhaps out of marketing stupidity, perhaps with the help
of the government (which has an interest in keeping a
monopoly on secure encryption)
+ One-way functions and "deposit-only envelopes"
- one-way functions
- deposit-only envelopes: allow additions to envelopes and
only addressee can open
- hash functions are easy to implement one-way functions
(with no need for an inverse)
5.5.4. Digital Signatures
+ Uses of Digital Signatures
- Electronic Contracts
- Voting
- Checks and other financial instruments (similar to
contracts)
- Date-stamped Transactions (augmenting Notary Publics)
- Undeniable digital signatures
+ Unforgeable signatures, even with unlimited computational
power, can be achieved if the population is limited (a
finite set of agents)
- using an untraceable sending protocol, such as "the
Dining Cryptographers Problem" of Chaum
5.5.5. Randomness and incompressibility
+ best definition we have is due to Chaitin and Kolmogoroff:
a string or any structure is "random" if it has no shorter
description of itself than itself.
- (Now even specific instances of "randomly generated
strings" sometimes will be compressible--but not very
often. Cf. the works of Chaitin and others for more on
these sorts of points.)
5.5.6. Steganography: Methods for Hiding the Mere Existence of
Encrypted Data
+ in contrast to the oft-cited point (made by crypto purists)
that one must assume the opponent has full access to the
cryptotext, some fragments of decrypted plaintext, and to
the algorithm itself, i.e., assume the worst
- a condition I think is practically absurd and unrealistic
- assumes infinite intercept power (same assumption of
infinite computer power would make all systems besides
one-time pads breakable)
- in reality, hiding the existence and form of an encrypted
message is important
+ this will be all the more so as legal challenges to
crypto are mounted...the proposed ban on encrypted
telecom (with $10K per day fine), various governmental
regulations, etc.
- RICO and other broad brush ploys may make people very
careful about revealing that they are even using
encryption (regardless of how secure the keys are)
+ steganography, the science of hiding the existence of
encrypted information
- secret inks
- microdots
- thwarting traffic analysis
- LSB method
+ Packing data into audio tapes (LSB of DAT)
+ LSB of DAT: a 2GB audio DAT will allow more than 100
megabytes in the LSBs
- less if algorithms are used to shape the spectrum to
make it look even more like noise
- but can also use the higher bits, too (since a real-
world recording will have noise reaching up to perhaps
the 3rd or 4th bit)
+ will manufacturers investigate "dithering" circuits?
(a la fat zero?)
- but the race will still be on
+ Digital video will offer even more storage space (larger
tapes)
- DVI, etc.
- HDTV by late 1990s
+ Messages can be put into GIFF, TIFF image files (or even
noisy faxes)
- using the LSB method, with a 1024 x 1024 grey scale image
holding 64KB in the LSB plane alone
- with error correction, noise shaping, etc., still at
least 50KB
- scenario: already being used to transmit message through
international fax and image transmissions
+ The Old "Two Plaintexts" Ploy
- one decoding produces "Having a nice time. Wish you were
here."
- other decoding, of the same raw bits, produces "The last
submarine left this morning."
- any legal order to produce the key generates the first
message
+ authorities can never prove-save for torture or an
informant-that another message exists
- unless there are somehow signs that the encrypted
message is somehow "inefficiently encrypted, suggesting
the use of a dual plaintext pair method" (or somesuch
spookspeak)
- again, certain purist argue that such issues (which are
related to the old "How do you know when to stop?"
question) are misleading, that one must assume the
opponent has nearly complete access to everything except
the actual key, that any scheme to combine multiple
systems is no better than what is gotten as a result of
the combination itself
- and just the overall bandwidth of data...
+ Several programs exist:
- Stego
- etc. (described elsewhere)
5.5.7. The Essential Impossibility of Breaking Modern Ciphers and
Codes
- this is an important change from the past (and from various
thriller novels that have big computers cracking codes)
- granted, "unbreakable" is a misleading term
+ recall the comment that NSA has not really broken any
Soviet systems in many years
- except for the cases, a la the Walker case, where
plaintext versions are gotten, i.e., where human screwups
occurred
- the image in so many novels of massive computers breaking
codes is absurd: modern ciphers will not be broken (but the
primitive ciphers used by so many Third World nations and
their embassies will continue to be child's play, even for
high school science fair projects...could be a good idea
for a small scene, about a BCC student who has his project
pulled)
+ But could novel computational methods crack these public
key ciphers?
+ some speculative candidates
+ holographic computers, where large numbers are
factored-or at least the possibilities are somehown
narrowed-by using arrays that (somehow) represent the
numbers to be factored
- perhaps with diffraction, channeling, etc.
- neural networks and evolutionary systems (genetic
algorithms)
- the idea is that somehow the massive computations can be
converted into something that is inherently parallel
(like a crystal)
+ hyperspeculatively: finding the oracle for these problems
using nonconventional methods such as ESP and lucid
dreaming
- some groups feel this is worthwhile
5.5.8. Anonymous Transfers
- Chaum's digital mixes
- "Dining Cryptographers"
+ can do it with exchanged diskettes, at a simple level
- wherein each person can add new material
+ Alice to Bob to Carol....Alice and Carol can conspire to
determine what Bob had added, but a sufficient "mixing"
of bits and pieces is possible such that only if
everybody conspires can one of the participants be caught
- perhaps the card-shuffling results?
+ may become common inside compute systems...
- by this vague idea I mean that various new OS protocols
may call for various new mechanisms for exchanging
information
5.5.9. Miscellaneous Abstract Ideas
- can first order logic predicates be proven in zero
knowledge?
- Riemannn hypothesis
+ P = NP?
- would the universe change?
- Smale has shown that if the squares have real numbers in
them, as opposed to natural numbers (integers), then P =
NP; perhaps this isn't surprising, as a real implies sort
of a recursive descent, with each square having unlimited
computer power
+ oracles
- speculatively, a character asks if Tarot cards, etc.,
could be used (in addition to the normal idea that such
devices help psychologically)
- "a cascade of changes coming in from hundreds of
decimal places out"
+ Quantum cryptography
- bits can be exchanged-albeit at fairly low
efficiencies-over a channel
- with detection of taps, via the change of polarizations
+ Stephen Wiesner wrote a 1970 paper, half a decade before
the P-K work, which outlined this-not published until
much later
- speculate that the NSA knew about this and quashed the
publication
+ But could novel computational methods crack these public
key ciphers?
+ some speculative candidates
+ holographic computers, where large numbers are
factored-or at least the possibilities are somehown
narrowed-by using arrays that (somehow) represent the
numbers to be factored
- perhaps with diffraction, channeling, etc.
- neural networks and evolutionary systems (genetic
algorithms)
- the idea is that somehow the massive computations can be
converted into something that is inherently parallel
(like a crystal)
+ hyperspeculatively: finding the oracle for these problems
using nonconventional methods such as ESP and lucid
dreaming
- some groups feel this is worthwhile
- links to knot theory
- "cut and choose" protocols (= zero knowledge)
+ can a "digital coin" be made?
- this is formally similar to the idea of an active agent
that is unforgeable, in the sense that the agent or coin
is "standalone"
+ bits can always be duplicated (unless tied to hardware,
as with TRMs), so must look elsewhere
+ could tie the bits to a specific location, so that
duplication would be obvious or useless
- the idea is vaguely that an agent could be placed in
some location...duplications would be both detectable
and irrelevant (same bits, same behavior,
unmodifiable because of digital signature)
+ coding theory and cryptography at the "Discrete
Mathematics"
- http://www.win.tue.nl/win/math/dw/index.html
5.5.10. Tamper-resistant modules (TRMs) (or tamper-responding)
+ usually "tamper-indicating", a la seals
- very tough to stop tampering, but relatively easy to see
if seal has been breached (and then not restored
faithfully)
- possession of the "seal" is controlled...this is the
historical equivalent to the "private key" in a digital
signature system, with the technological difficulty of
forging the seal being the protection
+ usually for crypto. keys and crypto. processing
- nuclear test monitoring
- smart cards
- ATMs
+ one or more sensors to detect intrusion
- vibration (carborundum particles)
- pressure changes (a la museum display cases)
- electrical
- stressed-glass (Corning, Sandia)
+ test ban treaty verification requires this
- fiber optic lines sealing a missile...
- scratch patterns...
- decals....
+ Epoxy resins
- a la Intel in 1970s (8086)
+ Lawrence Livermore: "Connoisseur Project"
- gov't agencies using this to protect against reverse
engineering, acquisition of keys, etc.
+ can't stop a determined effort, though
- etches, solvents, plasma ashing, etc.
- but can cause cost to be very high (esp. if resin
formula is varied frequently, so that "recipe" can't be
logged)
+ can use clear epoxy with "sparkles" in the epoxy and
careful 2-position photography used to record pattern
- perhaps with a transparent lid?
+ fiber optic seal (bundle of fibers, cut)
- bundle of fibers is looped around device, then sealed and
cut so that about half the fibers are cut; the pattern of
lit and
unlit fibers is a signature, and is extremely difficult
to reproduce
- nanotechnology may be used (someday)
5.6. Crypto Programs and Products
5.6.1. PGP, of course
- it's own section, needless to say
5.6.2. "What about hardware chips for encryption?"
- Speed can be gotten, for sure, but at the expense of
limiting the market dramatically. Good for military uses,
not so good for civilian uses (especially as most civilians
don't have a need for high speeds, all other things being
equal).
5.6.3. Carl Ellison's "tran" and mixing various ciphers in chains
- "tran.shar is available at ftp.std.com:/pub/cme
- des | tran | des | tran | des
- to make the job of the attacker much harder, and to make
differential cryptanalyis harder
- "it's in response to Eli's paper that I advocated prngxor,
as in:
des | prngxor | tran | des | tran | des
with the DES instances in ECB mode (in acknowledgement of
Eli's attack). The prngxor destroys any patterns from the
input, which was the purpose of CBC, without using the
feedback path which Eli exploited."[ Carl Ellison, 1994-07-
15]
5.6.4. The Blum-Blum-Shub RNG
- about the strongest algorithmic RNG we know of, albeit slow
(if they can predict the next bit of BBS, they can break
RSA, so....
- ripem.msu.edu:/pub/crypt/other/blum-blum-shub-strong-
randgen.shar
5.6.5. the Blowfish cipher
+ BLOWFISH.ZIP, written by Bruce Schneier,1994. subject of an
article in Dr. Dobb's Journal:
- ftp.dsi.unimi.it:/pub/security/crypt/code/schneier-
blowfish.c.gz
5.7. Related Ideas
5.7.1. "What is "blinding"?"
+ This is a basic primitive operation of most digital cash
systems. Any good textbook on crypto should explain it, and
cover the math needed to unerstand it in detail. Several
people have explained it (many times) on the list; here's a
short explanation by Karl Barrus:
- "Conceptually, when you blind a message, nobody else can
read it. A property about blinding is that under the
right circumstances if another party digitally signs a
blinded message, the unblinded message will contain a
valid digital signature.
"So if Alice blinds the message "I owe Alice $1000" so
that it reads (say) "a;dfafq)(*&" or whatever, and Bob
agrees to sign this message, later Alice can unblind the
message Bob signed to retrieve the original. And Bob's
digital signature will appear on the original, although
he didn't sign the original directly.
"Mathematically, blinding a message means multiplying it
by a number (think of the message as being a number).
Unblinding is simply dividing the original blinding
factor out." [Karl Barrus, 1993-08-24]
+ And another explanation by Hal Finney, which came up in the
context of how to delink pharmacy prescriptions from
personal identity (fears of medial dossiers(:
- "Chaum's "blinded credential" system is intended to solve
exactly this kind of problem, but it requires an
extensive infrastructure. There has to be an agency
where you physically identify yourself. It doesn't have
to know anything about you other than some physical ID
like fingerprints. You and it cooperate to create
pseudonyms of various classes, for example, a "go to the
doctor" pseudonym, and a "go to the pharmacy" pseudonym.
These pseudonyms have a certain mathematical relationship
which allows you to re-blind credentials written to one
pseudonym to apply to any other. But the agency uses
your physical ID to make sure you only get one pseudonym
of each kind....So, when the doctor gives you a
prescription, that is a credential applied to your "go to
the doctor" pseudonym. (You can of course also reveal
your real name to the doctor if you want.) Then you show
it at the pharmacy using your "go to the pharmacy"
pseudonym. The credential can only be shown on this one
pseudonym at the pharamacy, but it is unlinkable to the
one you got at the doctor's. " [Hal Finney, 1994-09-07]
5.7.2. "Crypto protocols are often confusing. Is there a coherent
theory of these things?"
- Yes, crypto protocols are often expressed as scenarios, as
word problems, as "Alice and Bob and Eve" sorts of
complicated interaction protocols. Not exactly game theory,
not exactly logic, and not exactly anything else in
particular...its own area.
- Expert systems, proof-of-correctness calculi, etc.
- spoofing, eavesdropping, motivations, reputations, trust
models
+ In my opinion, much more work is needed here.
- Graphs, agents, objects, capabilities, goals, intentions,
logic
- evolutionary game theory, cooperation, defection, tit-for-
tat, ecologies, economies
- mostly ignored, to date, by crypto community
5.7.3. The holder of a key *is* the person, basically
- that's the bottom line
- those that worry about this are free to adopt stronger,
more elaborate systems (multi-part, passphrases, biometric
security, limits on account access, etc.)
- whoever has a house key is essentially able to gain access
(not saying this is the legal situation, but the practical
one)
5.7.4. Strong crypto is helped by huge increases in processor power,
networks
+ Encryption *always wins out* over cryptanalysis...gap grows
greater with time
- "the bits win"
+ Networks can hide more bits...gigabits flowing across
borders, stego, etc.
- faster networks mean more "degrees of freedom," more
avenues to hide bits in, exponentially increasing efforts
to eavesdrop and track
- (However, these additional degrees of freedome can mean
greater chances for slipping up and leaving clues that
allow correlation. Complexity can be a problem.)
+ "pulling the plug" hurts too much...shuts down world
economy to stop illegal bits ("naughty bits"?)
- one of the main goals is to reach the "point of no
return," beyond which pulling the plug hurts too much
- this is not to say they won't still pull the plug, damage
be damned
5.7.5. "What is the "Diffie-Hellman" protocol and why is it
important?"
+ What it is
- Diffie-Hellman, first described in 1976, allows key
exchange over insecure channels.
+ Steve Bellovin was one of several people to explaine D-H
to the list (every few months someone does!). I'm
including his explanation, despite its length, to help
readers who are not cryptologists get some flavor of the
type of math involved. The thing to notice is the use of
*exponentiations* and *modular arithmetic* (the "clock
arithmetic" of our "new math" childhoods, except with
really, really big numbers!). The difficulty of inverting
the exponention (the discrete log problem) is what makes
this a cryptographically interesting approach.
- "The basic idea is simple. Pick a large number p
(probably a prime), and a base b that is a generator of
the group of integers modulo p. Now, it turns out that
given a known p, b, and (b^x) mod p, it's extremely
hard to find out x. That's known as the discrete log
problem.
"Here's how to use it. Let two parties, X and Y, pick
random numbers x and y, 1 < x,y < p. They each
calculate
(b^x) mod p
and
(b^y) mod p
and transmit them to each other. Now, X knows x and
(b^y) mod p, so s/he can calculate (b^y)^x mod p =
(b^(xy)) mod p. Y can do the same calculation. Now
they both know (b^(xy)) mod p. But eavesdroppers know
only (b^x) mod p and (b^y) mod p, and can't use those
quantities to recover the shared secret. Typically, of
course, X and Y will use that shared secret as a key to
a conventional cryptosystem.
"The biggest problem with the algorithm, as outlined
above, is that there is no authentication. An attacker
can sit in the middle and speak that protocol to each
legitimate party.
"One last point -- you can treat x as a secret key, and
publish
(b^X) mod p as a public key. Proof is left as an
exercise for
the reader." [Steve Bellovin, 1993-07-17]
- Why it's important
+ Using it
+ Matt Ghio has made available Phil Karn's program for
generating numbers useful for D-H:
- ftp cs.cmu.edu:
/afs/andrew.cmu.edu/usr12/mg5n/public/Karn.DH.generator
+ Variants and Comments
+ Station to Station protocol
- "The STS protocol is a regular D-H followed by a
(delicately designed) exchange of signatures on the key
exchange parameters. The signatures in the second
exchange that they can't be separated from the original
parameters.....STS is a well-thought out protocol, with
many subtleties already arranged for. For the issue at
hand, though, which is Ethernet sniffing, it's
authentication aspects are not required now, even
though they certainly will be in the near future."
[Eric Hughes, 1994-02-06]
5.7.6. groups, multiple encryption, IDEA, DES, difficulties in
analyzing
5.7.7. "Why and how is "randomness" tested?"
- Randomness is a core concept in cryptography. Ciphers often
fail when things are not as random as designers thought
they would be.
- Entropy, randomness, predictablility. Can never actually
_prove_ a data set is random, though one can be fairly
confident (cf. Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity theory).
- Still, tricks can make a random-looking text block look
regular....this is what decryption does; such files are
said to be cryptoregular.
+ As to how much testing is needed, this depends on the use,
and on the degree of confidence needed. It may take
millions of test samples, or even more, to establish
randomness in set of data. For example:
- "The standard tests for 'randomness' utilized in govt
systems requires 1X10^6 samples. Most of the tests are
standard probability stuff and some are classified. "
[Wray Kephart, sci.crypt, 1994-08-07]
- never assume something is really random just becuase it
_looks_ random! (Dynamic Markov compressors can find
nonrandomness quickly.)
5.7.8. "Is it possible to tell if a file is encrypted?"
- Not in general. Undecideability and all that. (Can't tell
in general if a virus exists in code, Adleman showed, and
can't tell in general if a file is encrypted, compressed,
etc. Goes to issues of what we mean by encrypted or
compressed.)
+ Sometimes we can have some pretty clear signals:
- headers are attached
- other characteristic signs
- entropy per character
+ But files encrypted with strong methods typically look
random; in fact, randomness is closely related to
encyption.
+ regularity: all symbols represented equally, in all bases
(that is, in doubles, triples, and all n-tuples)
- "cryptoregular" is the term: file looks random
(regular) until proper key is applied, then the
randomness vaDCharles Bennett, "Physics of Computation
Workshop," 1993]
- "entropy" near the maximum (e.g., near 6 or 7 bits per
character, whereas ordinary English has roughly 1.5-2
bits per character of entropy)
5.7.9. "Why not use CD-ROMs for one-time pads?"
- The key distribution problem, and general headaches. Theft
or compromise of the keying material is of course the
greatest threat.
- And one-time pads, being symmetric ciphers, give up the
incredible advantages of public key methods.
- "CD ROM is a terrible medium for the OTP key stream.
First, you want exactly two copies of the random stream.
CD ROM has an economic advantage only for large runs.
Second, you want to destroy the part of the stream already
used. CD ROM has no erase facilities, outside of physical
destruction of the entire disk." [Bryan G. Olson,
sci.crypt, 1994-08-31]
- If you have to have a one-time pad, a DAT makes more sense;
cheap, can erase the bits already used, doesn't require
pressing of a CD, etc. (One company claims to be selling CD-
ROMs as one-time pads to customers...the security problems
here should be obvious to all.)
5.8. The Nature of Cryptology
5.8.1. "What are the truly basic, core, primitive ideas of
cryptology, crypto protocols, crypto anarchy, digital cash,
and the things we deal with here?"
- I don't just mean things like the mechanics of encryption,
but more basic conceptual ideas.
5.8.2. Crypto is about the creation and linking of private spaces...
5.8.3. The "Core" Ideas of Cryptology and What we Deal With
- Physics has mass, energy, force, momentum, angular
momentum, gravitation, friction, the Uncertainty Principle,
Complementarity, Least Action, and a hundred other such
concepts and prinicples, some more basic than others. Ditto
for any other field.
+ It seems to many of us that crypto is part of a larger
study of core ideas involving: identity, proof, complexity,
randomness, reputations, cut-and-choose protocols, zero
knowledge, etc. In other words, the buzzwords.
- But which of these are "core" concepts, from which others
are derived?
- Why, for example, do the "cut-and-choose" protocols work
so well, so fairly? (That they do has been evident for a
long time, and they literally are instances of Solomonic
wisdom. Game theory has explanations in terms of payoff
matrices, Nash equilibria, etc. It seems likely to me
that the concepts of crypto will be recast in terms of a
smaller set of basic ideas taken from these disparate
fields of economics, game theory, formal systems, and
ecology. Just my hunch.)
+ statements, assertions, belief, proof
- "I am Tim"
+ possession of a key to a lock is usually treated as proof
of...
- not always, but that's the default assumption, that
someone who unlocks a door is one of the proper
people..access privileges, etc.
5.8.4. We don't seem to know the "deep theory" about why certain
protocols "work." For example, why is "cut-and-choose," where
Alice cuts and Bob chooses (as in fairly dividing a pie),
such a fair system? Game theory has a lot to do with it.
Payoff matrices, etc.
- But many protocols have not been fully studied. We know
they work, but I think we don't know fully why they work.
(Maybe I'm wrong here, but I've seen few papers looking at
these issues in detail.)
- Economics is certainly crucial, and tends to get overlooked
in analysis of crypto protocols....the various "Crypto
Conference Proceedings" papers typically ignore economic
factors (except in the area of measuring the strength of a
system in terms of computational cost to break).
- "All crypto is economics."
- We learn what works, and what doesn't. My hunch is that
complex crypto systems will have emergent behaviors that
are discovered only after deployment, or good simulation
(hence my interest in "protocol ecologies").
5.8.5. "Is it possible to create ciphers that are unbreakable in any
amount of time with any amount of computer power?"
+ Information-theoretically secure vs. computationally-secure
+ not breakable even in principle, e.g., a one-time pad
with random characters selected by a truly random process
(die tosses, radioactive decay, certain types of noise,
etc.)
- and ignoring the "breakable by break-ins" approach of
stealing the one-time pad, etc. ("Black bag
cryptography")
- not breakable in "reasonable" amounts of time with
computers
- Of course, a one-time pad (Vernam cipher) is theoretically
unbreakable without the key. It is "information-
theoretically secure."
- RSA and similar public key algorithms are said to be only
"computationally-secure," to some level of security
dependent on modulus lenght, computer resources and time
available, etc. Thus, given enough time and enough computer
power, these ciphers are breakable.
- However, they may be practically impossible to break, given
the amount of energy in the universe.Not to split universes
here, but it is interesting to consider that some ciphers
may not be breakable in _our_ universe, in any amount of
time. Our universe presumably has some finite number of
particles (currently estimated to be 10^73 particles). This
leads to the "even if every particle were a Cray Y-MP it
would take..." sorts of thought experiments.
But I am considering _energy_ here. Ignoring reversible
computation for the moment, computations dissipate energy
(some disagree with this point). There is some uppper limit
on how many basic computations could ever be done with the
amount of free energy in the universe. (A rough calculation
could be done by calculating the energy output of stars,
stuff falling into black holes, etc., and then assuming
about kT per logical operation. This should be accurate to
within a few orders of magnitude.) I haven't done this
calculation, and won't today, but the result would likely
be something along the lines of X joules of energy that
could be harnessed for computation, resulting in Y basic
primitive computational steps.
I can then find a modulus of 3000 digits or 5000 digits, or
whatever,that takes more than this number of steps to
factor.
Caveats:
1. Maybe there are really shortcuts to factoring. Certainly
improvements in factoring methods will continue. (But of
course these improvements are not things that convert
factoring into a less than exponential-in-length
problem...that is, factoring appears to remain "hard.")
2. Maybe reversible computations (a la Landauer, Bennett,
et. al.) actually work. Maybe this means a "factoring
machine" can be built which takes a fixed, or very slowly
growing, amount of energy.
3. Maybe the quantum-mechanical idea of Shore is possible.
(I doubt it, for various reasons.)
I continue to find it useful to think of very large numbers
as creating "force fields" or "bobbles" (a la Vinge) around
data. A 5000-decimal-digit modulus is as close to being
unbreakable as anything we'll see in this universe.
5.9. Practical Crypto
5.9.1. again, this stuff is covered in many of the FAQs on PGP and
on security that are floating around...
5.9.2. "How long should crypto be valid for?"
+ That is, how long should a file remain uncrackable, or a
digital signature remain unforgeable?
- probabalistic, of course, with varying confidence levels
- depends on breakthroughs, in math and in computer power
+ Some messages may only need to be valid for a few days or
weeks. Others, for decades. Certain contracts may need to
be unforgeable for many decades. And given advances in
computer power, what appears to be a strong key today may
fail utterly by 2020 or 2040. (I'm of course not
suggesting that a 300- or 500-digit RSA modulus will be
practical by then.)
+ many people only need security for a matter of months or
so, while others may need it (or think they need it) for
decades or even for generations
- they may fear retaliation against their heirs, for
example, if certain communications were ever made
public
- "If you are signing the contract digitally, for instance,
you would want to be sure that no one could forge your
signature to change the terms after the fact -- a few
months isn't enough for such purposes, only something that
will last for fifteen or twenty years is okay." [Perry
Metzger, 1994-07-06]
5.9.3. "What about commercial encryption programs for protecting
files?"
- ViaCrypt, PGP 2.7
- Various commercial programs have existed for years (I got
"Sentinel" back in 1987-8...long since discontinued). Check
reviews in the leading magazines.
+ Kent Marsh, FolderBolt for Macs and Windows
- "The best Mac security program....is CryptoMactic by Kent
Marsh Ltd. It uses triple-DES in CBC mode, hashes an
arbitrary-length password into a key, and has a whole lot
of Mac-interface features. (The Windows equivalent is
FolderBolt for Windows, by the way.)" [Bruce Schneier,
sci.crypt, 1994-07-19]
5.9.4. "What are some practical steps to take to improve security?"
- Do you, like most of us, leave backup diskettes laying
around?
- Do you use multiple-pass erasures of disks? If not, the
bits may be recovered.
- (Either of these can compromise all encrypted material you
have, all with nothing more than a search warrant of your
premises.)
5.9.5. Picking (and remembering) passwords
- Many of the issues here also apply to choosing remailers,
etc. Things are often trickier than they seem. The
"structure" of these spaces is tricky. For example, it may
seem really sneaky (and "high entropy" to permute some
words in a popular song and use that as a pass
phrase....but this is obviously worth only a few bits of
extra entropy. Specifically, the attacker will like take
the thousand or so most popular songs, thousand or so most
popular names, slogans, speeches, etc., and then run many
permutations on each of them.
- bits of entropy
- lots of flaws, weaknesses, hidden factors
- avoid simple words, etc.
- hard to get 100 or more bits of real entropy
- As Eli Brandt puts it, "Obscurity is no substitute for
strong random numbers." [E.B., 1994-07-03]
- Cryptanalysis is a matter of deduction, of forming and
refining hypotheses. For example, the site
"bitbucket@ee.und.ac.za" is advertised on the Net as a
place to send "NSA food" to...mail sent to it gets
discarded. So , a great place to send cover traffic to, no?
No, as the NSA will mark this site for what it is and its
usefulness is blown. (Unless its usefulness is actually
something else, in which case the recursive descent has
begun.)
- Bohdan Tashchuk suggests [1994-07-04] using telephone-like
numbers, mixed in with words, to better fit with human
memorization habits; he notes that 30 or more bits of
entropy are routinely memorized this way.
5.9.6. "How can I remember long passwords or passphrases?"
- Lots of security articles have tips on picking hard-to-
guess (high entropy) passwords and passphrases.
+ Just do it.
- People can learn to memorize long sequences. I'm not good
at this, but others apparently are. Still, it seems
dangerous, in terms of forgetting. (And writing down a
passphrase may be vastly more risky than a shorter but
more easily memorized passphrase is. I think theft
of keys and keystroke capturing on compromised machines
are much
more important practical weaknesses.)
+ The first letters of long phrases that have meaning only to
the owner.
- e.g., "When I was ten I ate the whole thing."--->
"wiwtiatwt" (Purists will quibble that prepositional
phrases like "when i was" have lower entropy. True, but
better than "Joshua.")
+ Visual systems
- Another approach to getting enough entropy in
passwords/phrases is a "visual key" where one mouses from
position to position in a visual environment. That is,
one is presented with a scene containg some number of
nodes, perhaps representing familiar objects from one's
own home, and a path is chosen. The advantage is that
most people can remember fairly complicated
(read: high entropy) "stories." Each object triggers a
memory of the next object to visit. (Example: door to
kitchen to blender to refrigerator to ..... ) This is the
visual memory system said to be favored by Greek epic
poets. This also gets around the keyboard-monitoring
trick (but not necessarily the CRT-reading trick, of
course).
It might be an interesting hack to offer this as a front
end for PGP. Even a simple grid of characters which could
be moused on could be an assist in using long
passphrases.
5.10. DES
5.10.1. on the design of DES
- Biham and Shamir showed how "differential cryptanalyis"
could make the attack easier than brute-force search of the
2^56 keyspace. Wiener did a thought experiment design of a
"DES buster" machine (who ya gonna call?) that could break
a DES key in a matter of days. (Similar to the Diffie and
Hellman analysis of the mid-70s, updated to current
technology.)
+ The IBM designers knew about differential cryptanalyis, it
is now clear, and took steps to optimize DES. After Shamir
and Biham published, Don Coppersmith acknowledged this.
He's written a review paper:
- Coppersmith, D., "The Data Encryption Standard (DES) and
its strength against attacks." IBM Journal of Research
and Development. 38(3): 243-250. (May 1994)
5.11. Breaking Ciphers
5.11.1. This is not a main Cypherpunks concern, for a variety of
reasons (lots of work, special expertise, big machines, not a
core area, ciphers always win in the long run). Breaking
ciphers is something to consider, hence this brief section.
5.11.2. "What are the possible consequences of weaknesses in crypto
systems?"
- maybe reading messages
- maybe forging messages
- maybe faking timestamped documents
- maybe draining a bank account in seconds
- maybe winning in a crypto gambling system
- maybe matters of life and death
5.11.3. "What are the weakest places in ciphers, practically
speaking?"
- Key management, without a doubt. People leave their keys
lying around , write down their passphrases. etc.
5.11.4. Birthday attacks
5.11.5. For example, at Crypto '94 it was reported in a rump session
(by Michael Wiener with Paul van Oorschot) that a machine to
break the MD5 ciphers could be built for about $10 M (in 1994
dollars, of course) and could break MD5 in about 20 days.
(This follows the 1993 paper on a similar machine to break
DES.)
- Hal Finney did some calculations and reported to us:
- "I mentioned a few days ago that one of the "rump session"
papers at the crypto conference claimed that a machine
could be built which would find MD5 collisions for $10M in
about 20 days.....The net result is that we have taken
virtually no more time (the 2^64 creations of MD5 will
dominate) and virtually no space (compared to 2^64 stored
values) and we get the effect of a birthday attack. This
is another cautionary data point about the risks of relying
on space costs for security rather than time costs." [Hal
Finney, 1994-09-09]
5.11.6. pkzip reported broken
- "I finally found time to take a closer look at the
encryption algorithm by Roger Schlafly that is used in
PKZIP and have developed a practical known plaintext attack
that can find the entire 96-bit internal state." [Paul Carl
Kocher, comp.risks, 1994-09-04]
5.11.7. Gaming attacks, where loopholes in a system are exploited
- contests that are defeated by automated attacks
- the entire legal system can be viewed this way, with
competing teams of lawyers looking for legal attacks (and
the more complex the legal code, the more attacks can be
mounted)
- ecologies, where weaknesses are exploited ruthlessly,
forcing most species into extinction
- economies, ditto, except must faster
- the hazards for crypto schemes are clear
+ And there are important links to the issue of overly formal
systems, or systems in which ordinary "discretion" and
"choice" is overridden by rules from outside
- as with rules telling employers in great detail when and
how they can discharge employees (cf. the discussion of
"reasonable rules made mandatory," elsewhere)
- such rules get exploited by employees, who follow the
"letter of the law" but are performing in a way
unacceptable to the employer
- related to "locality of reference" points, in that
problem should be resolved locally, not with intervention
from afar.
- things will never be perfect, from the perspetive of all
parties, but meddling from outside makes things into a
game, the whole point of this section
+ Implications for digital money: overly complex legal
systems, without the local advantages of true cash (settled
locally)
+ may need to inject some supra-legal enforcement
mechanisms into the system, to make it converge
- offshore credit databases, beyond reach of U.S. and
other laws
+ physical violence (one reason people don't "play games"
with Mafia, Triads, etc., is that they know the
implications)
- it's not unethical, as I see it, for contracts in
which the parties understand that a possible or even
likely consequence of their failure to perform is
death
5.11.8. Diffie-Hellman key exchange vulnerabilities
- "man-in-the-midle" attack
+ phone systems use voice readback of LCD indicated number
- as computer power increases, even _this_ may be
insufficient
5.11.9. Reverse engineering of ciphers
- A5 code used in GSM phones was reverse engineered from a
hardware description
- Graham Toal reports (1994-07-12) that GCHQ blocked a public
lectures on this
5.12. Loose Ends
5.12.1. "Chess Grandmaster Problem" and other Frauds and Spoofs
- of central importance to proofs of identity (a la Fiat-
Shamir)
- "terrorist" and "Mafia spoof" problems
6. The Need For Strong Crypto
6.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
6.2. SUMMARY: The Need For Strong Crypto
6.2.1. Main Points
- Strong crypto reclaims the power to decide for one's self,
to deny the "Censor" the power to choose what one reads,
watches, or listens to.
6.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
6.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
6.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
- this section is short, but is less focussed than other
sections; it is essentially a "transition" chapter.
6.3. General Uses of and Reasons for Crypto
6.3.1. (see also the extensive listing of "Reasons for Anonymity,"
which makes many points about the need and uses for strong
crypto)
6.3.2. "Where is public key crypto really needed?"
- "It is the case that there is relatively little need for
asymmetric key cryptography in small closed populations.
For example, the banks get along quite well without. The
advantage of public key is that it permits private
communication in a large and open population and with a
minimum of prearrangement." [WHMurray, sci.crypt, 1994-08-
25]
- That is, symmetric key systems (such as conventional
ciphers, one time pads, etc.) work reasonably well by
prearrangement between parties. And of course one time pads
have the additional advantage of being information-
theoretically secure. But asymmetric or public key methods
are incredibly useful when: the parties have not met
before, when key material has not been exchanged, and when
concerns exist about storing the key material. The so-
called "key management problem" when N people want to
communicate pairwise with each other is well-founded.
- And of course public key crypto makes possible all the
other useful stuff like digital money, DC-Nets, zero
knowledge proofs, secret sharing, etc.
6.3.3. "What are the main reasons to use cryptography?"
- people encrypt for the same reason they close and lock
their doors
+ Privacy in its most basic forms
- text -- records, diaries, letters, e-mail
- sound -- phone conversations
- other --video
+ phones, intercepts, cellular, wireless, car phones,
scanners
+ making listening illegal is useless (and wrong-headed)
- and authorites are exempt from such laws
- people need to protect, end to end
+ "How should I protect my personal files, and my phone
calls?"
- Personally, I don't worry too much. But many people do.
Encryption tools are widely available.
- Cellular telephones are notoriously insecure, as are
cordless phones (even less secure). There are laws
about monitoring, small comfort as that may be. (And
I'm largely opposed to such laws, for libertarian
reasons and because it creates a false sense of
security.)
- Laptops are probably less vulnerable to Van Eck types
of RF monitoring than are CRTs. The trend to lower
power, LCDs, etc., all works toward decreasing
vulnerability. (However, computer power for extracting
weak signals out of noise is increasing faster than RF
are decreasing....tradeoffs are unclear.)
+ encrypting messages because mail delivery is so flaky
- that is, mail is misdelivered,via hosts incorrectly
processing the addresses
- encryption obviously prevents misunderstandings (though
it does little to get the mail delivered correctly)
+ Encryption to Protect Information
- the standard reason
+ encryption of e-mail is increasing
- the various court cases about employers reading
ostensibly private e-mail will sharpen this debate (and
raise the issue of employers forbidding encryption;
resonances with the mostly-settled issue of reasonable
use of company phones for private calls-more efficient
to let some personal calls be made than to lose the
time of employees going to public phones)
+ encryption of faxes will increase, too, especially as
technology advances and as the dangers of interception
become more apparent
- also, tighter links between sender and receive, as
opposed to the current "dial the number and hope it's
the right one" approach, will encourage the additional
use of encryption
- "electronic vaulting" of large amounts of information,
sent over T1 and T3 data networks, e.g., backup material
for banks and large corporations
+ the miles and miles of network wiring within a
corporation-LANs, WANs, Novell, Ethernet, TCP-IP, Banyan,
and so on-cannot all be checked for taps...who would even
have the records to know if some particular wire is going
where it should? (so many undocumented hookups, lost
records, ad hoc connections, etc.)
- the solution is to have point-to-point encryption, even
withing corporations (for important items, at least)
- wireless LANs
+ corporations are becoming increasingly concerned about
interception of important information-or even seemingly
minor information-and about hackers and other intruders
- calls for network security enhancement
- they are hiring "tiger teams" to beef up security
+ cellular phones
- interceptions are common (and this is becoming
publicized)
- modifications to commercial scanners are describe in
newsletters
- something like Lotus Notes may be a main substrate for
the effective introduction of crypto methods (ditto for
hypertext)
- encryption provides "solidity" to cyberspace, in the
sense of creating walls, doors, permanent structures
- there may even be legal requirements for better security
over documents, patient files, employee records, etc.
+ Encryption of Video Signals and Encryption to Control
Piracy
- this is of course a whole technology and industry
- Videocypher II has been cracked by many video hackers
- a whole cottage industry in cracking such cyphers
- note that outlawing encryption would open up many
industries to destruction by piracy, which is yet
another reason a wholesale ban on encryption is doomed
to failure
- Protecting home videos--several cases of home burglaries
where private x-rated tapes of stars were taken, then
sold (Leslile Visser, CBS Sports)
- these general reasons will make encryption more common,
more socially and legally acceptable, and will hence make
eventual attempts to limit the use of crypto anarchy
methods moot
+ Digital Signatures and Authentication
+ for electronic forms of contracts and digital
timestamping
- not yet tested in the courts, though this should come
soon (perhaps by 1996)
+ could be very useful for proving that transactions
happened at a certain time (Tom Clancy has a situation
in "Debt of Honor" in which all Wall Street central
records of stock trades are wiped out in a software
scheme: only the records of traders are useful, and
they are worried about these being fudged to turn
profits...timestamping would help immensely)
- though certain spoofs, a la the brilliant penny scam,
are still possible (register multiple trades, only
reveal the profitable ones)
- negotiations
- AMIX, Xanadu, etc.
+ is the real protection against viruses (since all other
scanning methods will increasingly fail)
- software authors and distributors "sign" their
work...no virus writer can possibly forge the digital
signature
+ Proofs of identity, passwords, and operating system use
- ZKIPS especially in networks, where the chances of seeing
a password being transmitted are much greater (an obvious
point that is not much discussed)
+ operating systems and databases will need more secure
procedures for access, for agents and the like to pay for
services, etc.
- unforgeable tokens
+ Cyberspace will need better protection
- to ensure spoofing and counterfeiting is reduced
(recall Habitat's problems with people figuring out the
loopholes)
+ if OH is also working on "world- building" at Los
Alamos, he may be using evolutionary systems and
abstract math to help build better and more "coherent"
worlds
- agents, demons, structures, persistent objects
- encryption to protect these structures
+ the abstract math part of cyberspace: abstract
measure spaces, topologies, distance metrics
- may figure in to the balance between user
malleabilty and rigidity of the space
- Chaitin's AIT...he has obtained measures for these
+ Digital Contracts
- e-mail too easily forged, faked (and lost, misplaced)
+ Anonymity
- remailing
- law avoidance
- samizdats,
- Smart cards, ATMs, etc.
- Digital Money
- Voting
+ Information Markets
- data havens, espionage
+ Privacy of Purchases
- for general principles, to prevent a surveillance society
+ specialized mailing lists
- vendors pay to get names (Crest labels)
- Smalltalk job offers
- in electronic age, will be much easier to "troll" for
specialized names
- people will want to "selectively disclose" their
interests (actually, some will, some won't)
6.3.4. "What may limit the use of crypto?"
+ "It's too hard to use"
- multiple protocols (just consider how hard it is to
actually send encrypted messages between people today)
- the need to remember a password or passphrase
+ "It's too much trouble"
- the argument being that people will not bother to use
passwords
- partly because they don't think anything will happen to
them
+ "What have you got to hide?"
- e.g.,, imagine some comments I'd have gotten at Intel had
I encrypted everything
- and governments tend to view encryption as ipso facto
proof that illegalities are being committed: drugs, money
laundering, tax evasion
- recall the "forfeiture" controversy
+ Government is taking various steps to limit the use of
encryption and secure communication
- some attempts have failed (S.266), some have been
shelved, and almost none have yet been tested in the
courts
- see the other sections...
+ Courts Are Falling Behind, Are Overcrowded, and Can't Deal
Adequately with New Issues-Such as Encryption and Cryonics
- which raises the issue of the "Science Court" again
- and migration to private adjudication (regulatory
arbitrage)
- BTW, anonymous systems are essentially the ultimate merit
system (in the obvious sense) and so fly in the face of the
"hiring by the numbers" de facto quota systems now
creeeping in to so many areas of life....there may be rules
requiring all business dealings to keep track of the sex,
race, and "ability group" (I'm kidding, I hope) of their
employees and their consultants
6.3.5. "What are some likely future uses of crypto?"
- Video conferencing: without crypto, or with government
access, corporate meetings become public...as if a
government agent was sitting in a meeting, taking notes.
(There may be some who think this is a good idea, a check
on corporate shenanigans. I don't. Much too high a price to
pay for marginal or illusory improvements.)
- presenting unpopular views
+ getting and giving medical treatments
- with or without licenses from the medical union (AMA)
- unapproved treatments
- bootleg medical treatments
- information markets
+ sanctuary movements, underground railroads
- for battered wives
- and for fathers taking back their children
- (I'm not taking sides)
- smuggling
- tax evasion
- data havens
- bookies, betting, numbers games
- remailers, anonymity
- religious networks (digital confessionals)
- digital cash, for privacy and for tax evasion
- digital hits
- newsgroup participation -- archiving of Netnews is
commonplace, and increases in storage density make it
likely that in future years one will be able to purchase
disks with "Usenet, 1985-1995" and so forth (or access,
search, etc. online sites)
6.3.6. "Are there illegal uses of crypto?"
- Currently, there are no blanket laws in the U.S. about
encryption.
+ There are specific situations in which encryption cannot be
freely used (or the use is spelled out)
- over the amateur radio airwave...keys must be provided
+ Carl Elllison has noted many times that cryptography has
been in use for many centuries; the notion that it is a
"military" technology that civilians have some how gotten
ahold of is just plain false.
- and even public key crypto was developed in a university
(Stanford, then MIT)
6.4. Protection of Corporate and Financial Privacy
6.4.1. corporations are becoming increasingly concerned about
interception of important information-or even seemingly minor
information-and about hackers and other intruders
- calls for network security enhancement
- they are hiring "tiger teams" to beef up security
+ cellular phones
- interceptions are common (and this is becoming
publicized)
- modifications to commercial scanners are describe in
newsletters
- something like Lotus Notes may be a main substrate for the
effective introduction of crypto methods (ditto for
hypertext)
6.4.2. Corporate Espionage (or "Business Research")
+ Xeroxing of documents
- recall the way Murrray Woods inspected files of Fred
Buch, suspecting he had removed the staples and Xeroxed
the documents for Zilog (circa late 1977)
- a precedent: shapes of staples
+ colors of the paper and ink...blues, for example
- but these low-tech schemes are easy to circumvent
+ Will corporations crack down on use of modems?
+ after all, the specs of a chip or product could be mailed
out of the company using the companies own networks!
- applies to outgoing letters as well (and I've never
heard of any company inspecting to this detail, though
it may happen at defense contractors)
+ and messages can still be hidden (covert channels)
- albeit at much lower bandwidths and with more effort
required (it'll stop the casual leakage of information)
- the LSB method (though this still involves a digital
storage means, e.g., a diskette, which might be
restricted)
- various other schemes: buried in word processing format
(at low bandwidth)
- subtleties such as covert channels are not even
considered by corporations-too many leakage paths!
+ it seems likely that government workers with security
clearances will face restrictions on their access to AMIX-
like systems, or even to "private" use of conventional
databases
- at least when they use UseNet, the argument will go,
they can be overseen to some extent
+ Offsite storage and access of stolen material
+ instead of storing stolen blueprints and schematics on
company premises, they may be stored at a remote location
- possiby unknown to the company, via cryptoanarchy
techniques
+ "Business research" is the euphemism for corporate
espionage
- often hiring ex-DIA and CIA agents
+ American companies may step up their economic espionage
once it is revealed just how extensive the spying by
European and Japanese companies has been
- Chobetsu reports to MITI
- Mossad aids Israeli companies, e.g., Elscint. Elbit
+ Bidzos calls this "a digital Pearl Harbor" (attacks on
network security)
- would be ironic if weaknesses put into encryption gear
came back to haunt us
+ corporations will want an arms length relationship with
corporate spies, to protect themselves against lawsuits,
criminal charges, etc.
- third party research agencies will be used
6.4.3. Encryption to Protect Information
- the standard reason
+ encryption of e-mail is increasing
- the various court cases about employers reading
ostensibly private e-mail will sharpen this debate (and
raise the issue of employers forbidding encryption;
resonances with the mostly-settled issue of reasonable
use of company phones for private calls-more efficient to
let some personal calls be made than to lose the time of
employees going to public phones)
+ encryption of faxes will increase, too, especially as
technology advances and as the dangers of interception
become more apparent
- also, tighter links between sender and receive, as
opposed to the current "dial the number and hope it's the
right one" approach, will encourage the additional use of
encryption
- "electronic vaulting" of large amounts of information, sent
over T1 and T3 data networks, e.g., backup material for
banks and large corporations
+ the miles and miles of network wiring within a
corporation-LANs, WANs, Novell, Ethernet, TCP-IP, Banyan,
and so on-cannot all be checked for taps...who would even
have the records to know if some particular wire is going
where it should? (so many undocumented hookups, lost
records, ad hoc connections, etc.)
- the solution is to have point-to-point encryption, even
withing corporations (for important items, at least)
- wireless LANs
- encryption provides "solidity" to cyberspace, in the sense
of creating walls, doors, permanent structures
- there may even be legal requirements for better security
over documents, patient files, employee records, etc.
6.4.4. U.S. willing to seize assets as they pass through U.S.
(Haiti, Iraq)
6.4.5. Privacy of research
- attacks on tobacco companies, demanding their private
research documents be turned over to the FDA (because
tobacco is 'fair game" for all such attacks, ...)
6.4.6. Using crypto-mediated business to bypass "deep pockets"
liability suits, abuse of regulations, of the court system,
etc.
+ Abuses of Lawsuits: the trend of massive
judgments...several million for a woman burned when she
spilled hot coffee at a MacDonald's ($160K for damages, the
rest for "punitive damages")
- billions of dollars for various jury decisions
- "deep pockets" lawsuits are a new form of populism, of de
Tocqueville's pocket-picking
+ For example, a shareware author might collect digital cash
without being traceable by those who feel wronged
- Is this "right"? Well , what does the contract say? If
the customer bought or used the product knowing that the
author/seller was untraceable, and that no additional
warranties or guarantees were given, what fraud was
committed?
+ crypto can, with some costs, take interactions out of the
reach of courts
- replacing the courts with PPL-style private-produced
justice
6.4.7. on anonymous communication and corporations
- Most corporations will avoid anonymous communications,
fearing the repercussions, the illegality (vis-a-vis
antitrust law), and the "unwholesomeness" of it
+ Some may use it to access competitor intelligence, offshore
data havens, etc.
- Even here, probably through "arm's length" relationships
with outside consultants, analogous to the cutouts used
by the CIA and whatnot to insulate themselves from
charges
- Boldest of all will be the "crypto-zaibatsu" that use
strong crypto of the crypto anarchy flavor to arrange
collusive deals, to remove competitors via force, and to
generally pursue the "darker side of the force," to coin a
phrase.
6.5. Digital Signatures
6.5.1. for electronic forms of contracts
- not yet tested in the courts, though this should come soon
(perhaps by 1996)
6.5.2. negotiations
6.5.3. AMIX, Xanadu, etc.
6.5.4. is the real protection against viruses (since all other
scanning methods will increasingly fail)
- software authors and distributors "sign" their work...no
virus writer can possibly forge the digital signature
6.6. Political Uses of Crypto
6.6.1. Dissidents, Amnesty International
- Most governments want to know what their subjects are
saying...
- Strong crypto (including steganography to hide the
existence of the communications) is needed
- Myanmar (Burma) dissidents are known to be using PGP
6.6.2. reports that rebels in Chiapas (Mexico, Zapatistas) are on
the Net, presumably using PGP
- (if NSA can really crack PGP, this is probably a prime
target for sharing with the Mexican government)
6.6.3. Free speech has declined in America--crypto provides an
antidote
- people are sued for expressing opinions, books are banned
("Loompanics Press" facing investigations, because some
children ordered some books)
+ SLAPP suits (Strategic Lawsuiits Against Public
Participation), designed to scare off differing opinions by
threatening legal ruination in the courts
- some judges have found for the defendants and ordered the
SLAPPers to pay damages themselves, but this is still a
speech-chilling trend
- crypto untraceability is good immunity to this trend, and
is thus *real* free speech
6.7. Beyond Good and Evil, or, Why Crypto is Needed
6.7.1. "Why is cryptography good? Why is anonymity good?"
- These moral questions pop up on the List once in a while,
often asked by someone preparing to write a paper for a
class on ethics or whatnot. Most of us on the list probably
think the answers are clearly "yes," but many in the public
may not think so. The old dichotomy between "None of your
damned business" and "What have you got to hide?"
- "Is it good that people can write diaried unread by
others?" "Is it good that people can talk to each other
without law enforcement knowing what they're saying?" "Is
it good that people can lock their doors and hide from
outsiders?" These are all essentially equivalent to the
questions above.
- Anonymity may not be either good or not good, but the
_outlawing_ of anonymity would require a police state to
enforce, would impinge on basic ideas about private
transactions, and would foreclose many options that some
degree of anonymity makes possible.
- "People should not be anonymous" is a normative statement
that is impractical to enforce.
6.7.2. Speaking of the isolation from physical threats and pressures
that cyberspace provides, Eric Hughes writes: "One of the
whole points of anonymity and pseudonymity is to create
immunity from these threats, which are all based upon the
human body and its physical surroundings. What is the point
of a system of anonymity which can be pierced when something
"bad" happens? These systems do not reject the regime of
violence; rather, they merely mitigate it slightly further
and make their morality a bit more explicit.....I desire
systems which do not require violence for their existence and
stability. I desire anonymity as an ally to break the hold
of morality over culture." [Eric Hughes, 1994-08-31]
6.7.3. Crypto anarchy means prosperity for those who can grab it,
those competent enough to have something of value to offer
for sale; the clueless 95% will suffer, but that is only
just. With crypto anarchy we can painlessly, without
initiation of aggression, dispose of the nonproductive, the
halt and the lame. (Charity is always possible, but I suspect
even the liberal do-gooders will throw up their hands at the
prospect of a nation of mostly unskilled and essentially
illiterate and innumerate workers being unable to get
meaninful, well-paying jobs.)
6.7.4. Crypto gets more important as communication increases and as
computing gets distributed
+ with bits and pieces of one's environment scattered around
- have to worry about security
- others have to also protect their own products, and yet
still provide/sell access
- private spaces needed in disparate
locations...multinationals, teleconferencing, video
6.8. Crypo Needed for Operating Systems and Networks
6.8.1. Restrictions on cryptography--difficult as they may be to
enforce--may also impose severe hardships on secure operating
system design, Norm Hardy has made this point several times.
- Agents and objects inside computer systems will likely need
security, credentials, robustness, and even digital money
for transactions.
6.8.2. Proofs of identity, passwords, and operating system use
- ZKIPS especially in networks, where the chances of seeing a
password being transmitted are much greater (an obvious
point that is not much discussed)
+ operating systems and databases will need more secure
procedures for access, for agents and the like to pay for
services, etc.
- unforgeable tokens
6.8.3. An often unmentioned reason why encyption is needed is for
the creation of private, or virtual, networks
- so that channels are independent of the "common carrier"
+ to make this clear: prospects are dangerously high for a
consolidation under government control of networks
- in parallel with roads
+ and like roads, may insist on equivalent of licenses
- is-a-person
- bans on encryption
- The Nightmare Scenario: "We own the networks, we won't
let anyone install new networks without our approval, and
we will make the laws about what gets carried, what
encryption can be used, and how taxes will be collected."
- Fortunately, I doubt this is enforceable...too many ways
to create virtual networks...satellites like Iridium,
fiber optics, ways to hide crypto or bury it in other
traffic
+ cyberspace walls...
+ more than just crypto: physical security is needed (and
for much the same reason no "digital coin" exists)
- processes running on controlled-accesss machines (as
with remailers)
- access by crypto
+ a web of mutually suspicious machines may be sufficient
- robust cyberspaces built with DC-Net ("dining
cryptographers") methods?
6.9. Ominous Trends
6.9.1. Ever-increasing numbers of laws, complexities of tax codes,
etc.
- individuals no longer can navigate
6.9.2. National ID cards
- work permits, immigration concerns, welfare fraud, stopping
terrorists, collecting taxes
- USPS and other proposals
6.9.3. Key Escrow
6.9.4. Extension of U.S. law around the world
- Now that the U.S. has vanquished the U.S.S.R., a free field
ahead of it for spreading the New World Order, led of
course by the U.S.A. and its politicians.
- treaties, international agreements
- economic hegemony
- U.N. mandates, forces, "blue helmets"
6.9.5. AA BBS case means cyberspace is not what we though it was
6.10. Loose Ends
6.10.1. "Why don't most people pay more attention to security
issues?"
- Fact is, most people never think about real security.
- Safe manufacturers have said that improvements in safes
(the metal kind) were driven by insurance rates. A direct
incentive to spend more
money to improve security (cost of better safe < cost of
higher insurance rate).
- Right now there is almost no economic incentive for people
to worry
about PIN security, about protecting their files, etc.
(Banks eat the
costs and pass them on...any bank which tried to save a few
bucks in
losses by requiring 10-digit PINs--which people would
*write down*
anyway!--would lose customers. Holograms and pictures on
bank cards
are happening because the costs have dropped enough.)
- Crypto is economics. People will begin to really care when
it costs them.
6.10.2. What motivates an attackers is not the intrinsic value of the
data but his perception of the value of the data.
6.10.3. Crypto allows more refinement of permissions...access to
groups, lists
- beyond such crude methods as banning domain names or "edu"
sorts of accounts
6.10.4. these general reasons will make encryption more common, more
socially and legally acceptable, and will hence make eventual
attempts to limit the use of crypto anarchy methods moot
6.10.5. protecting reading habits..
- (Imagine using your MicroSoftCashCard for library
checkouts...)
6.10.6. Downsides
- loss of trust
- markets in unsavory things
- espionage
+ expect to see new kinds of con jobs
- confidence games
- "Make Digital Money Fast"
6.10.7. Encryption of Video Signals and Encryption to Control Piracy
- this is of course a whole technology and industry
- Videocypher II has been cracked by many video hackers
- a whole cottage industry in cracking such cyphers
- note that outlawing encryption would open up many
industries to destruction by piracy, which is yet another
reason a wholesale ban on encryption is doomed to failure
7. PGP -- Pretty Good Privacy
7.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
7.2. SUMMARY: PGP -- Pretty Good Privacy
7.2.1. Main Points
- PGP is the most important crypto tool there is, having
single-handedly spread public key methods around the world
- many other tools are being built on top of it
7.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
- ironically, almost no understanding of how PGP works in
detail is needed; there are plenty of experts who
specialize in that
7.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
- newsgroups carry up to date comments; just read them for a
few weeks and many things will float by
- various FAQs on PGP
+ even an entire book, by Simpson Garfinkel:
- PGP: Pretty Good Privacy
by Simson Garfinkel
1st Edition November 1994 (est.)
250 pages (est),ISBN: 1-56592-098-8, $17.95 (est)
7.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
- a vast number of ftp sites, URLs, etc., and these change
- this document can't possibly stay current on these--see the
pointers in the newsgroups for the most current sites
7.3. Introduction
7.3.1. Why does PGP rate its own section?
- Like Clipper, PGP is too big a set of issues not to have
its own section
7.3.2. "What's the fascination in Cypherpunks with PGP?"
- Ironically, our first meeting, in September 1992, coincided
within a few days of the release of PGP 2.0. Arthur Abraham
provided diskettes of 2.0, complete with laser-printed
labels. Version 2.0 was the first truly useful version of
PGP (so I hear....I never tried Version 1.0, which had
limited distribution). So PGP and Cypherpunks shared a
history--and Phil Zimmermann has been to some physical
meetings.
- A practical, usable, understandable tool. Fairly easy to
use. In contrast, many other developments are more abstract
and do not lend themselves to use by hobbyists and
amateurs. This alone ensures PGP an honored place (and
might be an object lesson for developers of other tools).
7.3.3. The points here focus on PGP, but may apply as well to
similar crypto programs, such as commercial RSA packages
(integrated into mailers, commercial programs, etc.).
7.4. What is PGP?
7.4.1. "What is PGP?"
7.4.2. "Why was PGP developed?"
7.4.3. Who developed PGP?
7.5. Importance of PGP
7.5.1. PGP 2.0 arrived at an important time
- in September 1992, the very same week the Cypherpunks had
their first meeting, in Oakland, CA. (Arthur Abraham
printed up professional-looking diskette labels for the PGO
2.0 diskettes distributed. A general feeling that we were
forming at the "right time.")
- just 6 months before the Clipper announcement caused a
firestorm of interest in public key cryptography
7.5.2. PGP has been the catalyst for major shifts in opinion
- has educated tens of thousands of users in the nature of
strong crypto
- has led to other tools, including encrypted remailers,
experiments in digital money, etc.
7.5.3. "If this stuff is so important, how come not everyone is
digitally signing their messages?"
- (Me, for example. I never sign my messages, and this FAQ is
not signed. Maybe I will, later.)
- convenience, ease of use, "all crypto is economics"
- insecurity of host Unix machines (illusory)
- better integration with mailers needed
7.5.4. Ripem appears to be dead; traffic in alt.security.ripem is
almost zero. PGP has obviously won the hearts and minds of
the user community; and now that it's "legal"...
7.6. PGP Versions
7.6.1. PGP Versions and Implementations
- 2.6ui is the version compatible with 2.3
+ What is the difference between versions 2.6 and 2.6ui?
- "PGP 2.6 is distributed from MIT and is legally available
to US and Canadian residents. It uses the RSAREF library.
It has code that will prevent interoperation with earlier
versions of PGP.
"PGP 2.6ui is a modified version of PGP 2.3a which
functions almost identically to MIT PGP 2.6, without the
"cripple code" of MIT PGP 2.6. It is legally available
outside the US and Canada only." [Rat
, alt.security.pgp, 1994-07-03]
+ DOS
- Versions
+ Pretty Good Shell
- "When your Microsoft Mail supports an external Editor,
you might want to try PGS (Pretty Good Shell),
available as PGS099B.ZIP at several ftp sites. It
enables you to run PGP from a shell, with a easy way to
edit/encrypt files." [HHM LIMPENS, 1994-07-01]
- Windows
+ Sun
- "I guess that you should be able to use PGPsendmail,
available at ftp.atnf.csiro.au:/pub/people/rgooch'
[eric@terra.hacktic.nl (Eric Veldhuyzen), PGP support for
Sun's Mailtool?, alt.security.pgp, 1994-06-29]
+ Mark Grant has been working on a tool
to replace Sun's mailtool. "Privtool ("Privacy Tool") is
intended to be a PGP-aware replacement for the standard
Sun Workstation mailtool program, with a similar user
interface and automagick support for PGP-signing and PGP-
encryption." [MG, 1994-07-03]
- "At the moment, the Beta release is available from
ftp.c2.org in /pub/privtool as privtool-0.80.tar.Z, and
I've attached the README.1ST file so that you can check
out the features and bugs before you download it. ....
Currently the program requires the Xview toolkit to
build, and has only been compiled on SunOS 4.1 and
Solaris 2.1."
+ MacPGP
- 2.6ui: reports of problems, bombs (remove Preferencs set
by previous versions from System folder)
- "MacPGP 2.6ui is fully compatible with MIT's MacPGP 2.6,
but offers several advantages, a chief one being that
MacPGP 2.6ui is controllable via AppleScript. This is a
very powerful feature, and pre-written AppleScripts are
already available. A set of AppleScripts called the
Interim Macintosh PGP Interface (IMPI) support
encryption, decryption, and signing of files via drag-n-
drop, finder selection, the clipboard, all accessible
from a system-wide menu. Eudora AppleScripts also exist
to interface MacPGP with the mail program Eudora.
"MacPGP 2.6ui v1.2 is available via anonymous ftp from:
FTP SITE DIRECTORY
CONTENTS
-------- ---------
--------
ftp.darmstadt.gmd.de pub/crypto/macintosh/MacPGP
MacPGP 2.6ui, source
AppleScripts for 2.6ui are available for U.S. and
Canadian citizens ONLY
via anonymous ftp from:
FTP SITE DIRECTORY
CONTENTS
-------- ---------
--------
ftp.csn.net mpj
IMPI & Eudora scripts
MacPGP 2.6ui, source
[phinely@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Peter Hinely),
alt.security.pgp, 1994-06-28]
- Amiga
+ VMS
- 2.6ui is said to compile and run under VMS.
+ German version
- MaaPGP0,1T1,1
- dtp8//dtp,dapmqtadt,gmd,de/ilaomilg/MaaP
- Ahpiqtoph_Pagalies@hh2.maus.
- (source: andreas.elbert@gmd.de (A.Elbert). by way of
qwerty@netcom.com (-=Xenon=-), 3-31-94
7.6.2. What versions of PGP exist?
- PGP 2.7 is ViaCrypt's commercial version of PGP 2.6
7.6.3. PGP 2.6 issues
- There has been much confusion, in the press and in
discussion groups, about the issues surrounding 2.5, 2.6,
2.6ui, and various versions of these. Motivations,
conspiracies, etc., have all been discussed. I'm not
involved as others on our list are, so I'm often confused
too.
+ Here are some comments by Phil Zimmermann, in response to a
misleading press report:
- "PGP 2.6 will always be able to read messages,
signatures, and keys from olderversions, even after
September 1st. The older versions will not be able to
read messages, signatures and keys produced by PGP 2.6
after September 1st. This is an entirely different
situation. There is every reason for people to switch to
PGP 2.6, because it will be able to handle both data
formats, while the older versions will not. Until
September, the new PGP will continue to produce the old
format that can be read by older versions, but will start
producing the new format after that date. This delay
allows time for everyone to obtain the new version of
PGP, so that they will not be affected by the change.
Key servers will still be able to carry the keys made in
the old format, because PGP 2.6 will still read them with
no problems. " [Phil Zimmermann, 1994-07-07, also posted
to Usenet groups] [all dates here refer to 1994]
- "I developed PGP 2.6 to be released by MIT, and I think
this new
arrangement is a breakthrough in the legal status of PGP,
of benefit to
all PGP users. I urge all PGP users to switch to PGP
2.6, and abandon
earlier versions. The widespread replacement of the old
versions with
this new version of PGP fits in with future plans for the
creation of a
PGP standard." [Phil Zimmermann, 1994-07-07, also posted
to Usenet groups]
7.6.4. PGP version 2.6.1
- "MIT will be releasing Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) version
2.6.1 real soon now. By tomorrow, I think. The MSDOS
release filename will be pgp261.zip, and the source code
will be in pgp261s.zip. The MIT FTP site is net-
dist@mit.edu, in the pub/PGP directory." [corrected by
Derek Atkins to be: net-dist.mit.edu, not net-
dist@mit.edu.]
"This new version has a lot of bug fixes over version 2.6.
I hope this is the final release of this family of PGP
source code. We've been working on an entirely new version
of PGP, rewritten from scratch, which is much cleaner and
faster, and better suited for the future enhancements we
have planned. All PGP development efforts will be
redirected toward this new code base, after this 2.6.1
release." [Phil Zimmermann, Cypherpunks list, 1994-09-02]
7.7. Where to Get PGP?
7.7.1. "Where can I get PGP on CompuServe?"
- Note: I can't keep track of the major ftp sites for the
various crypto packages, let alone info on services like
this. But, here it is;
- "Current as of 5-Jul-1994:"
GO EURFORUM / Utilities PGP26UI.ZIP PGP 2.6ui
GO PWOFORUM / New uploads PGP26.ZIP PGP 2.6
PWOFORUM also has the source code and documentation, plus
a number of shell utilities for PGP. Version 2.3a is also
still around." [cannon@panix.com, Kevin Martin, PGP on
Compuserve??, alt.security.pgp, 1994-07-08]
7.7.2. Off line PGP
+ ftp.informatik.uni-
hamburg.de:/pub/virus/crypt/pgp/tools/pgp-elm.zip
- another place: Crosspoint: ftp.uni-
kl.de:/pub3/pc/dos/terminal/xpoint XP302*.EXE
+ "I highly recommend Offline AutoPGP v2.10. It works
seamlessly with virtually any offline mail reader that
supports .QWK packets. Shareware registration is $10.00
US. The author is Staale Schumacher, a student at the
University of Oslo, is reachable at staale@ifi.uio.no .
The program should be pretty widely available on US bbs's
by now. I use the program constantly for bbs mail. It's
really quite a slick piece of work. If you have any
trouble finding it, drop me a note."
[bhowatt@eis.calstate.edu Brent H. Howatt, PGP in an
offline reader?, alt.security.pgp, 1994-07-05]
- oak.oakland.edu in /pub/msdos/offline, version 2.11
- ftp.informatik.uni-
hamburg.de:/pub/virus/crypt/pgp/tools/apgp211.zip
7.7.3. "Should I worry about obtaining and compiling the PGP
sources?"
- Well, unless you're an expert on the internals of PGP, why
bother? And a subtle bug in the random number generator
eluded even Colin Plumb for a while.
- The value of the source being available is that others can,
if they wish, make the confirmation that the executable
correspond to the source. That this _can_ be done is enough
for me. (Strategy: Hold on to the code for a while, wait
for reports of flaws or holes, then use with confidence.)
- Signatures can be checked. Maybe timestamped versions,
someday.
- Frankly, the odds are much higher that one's messages or
pseudonymous identity will be exposed in others ways than
that PGP has been compromised. Slip-ups in sending messages
sometimes reveal identities, as do inadvertent comments and
stylistic cues.
7.8. How to Use PGP
7.8.1. How does PGP work?
7.8.2. "How should I store the secret part of my key? Can I memorize
it?"
- Modern ciphers use keys that are far beyond memorization
(or even typing in!). The key is usually stored on one's
home machine, or a machine that is reasonably secure, or on
diskette. The passphrase should always be memorized or
written down (ugh) in one's wallet or other such place.
Secure "dongles" worn around the neck, or a ring or watch,
may eventually be used. Smartcards and PDAs are a more
likely intermediate solution (many PCs now have PCMCIA card
slots).
7.8.3. "How do I sign messages?"
- cf. the PGP docs
+ however, this has come up on the List, and:
-
+ pgp -sta +clearsig=on message.txt
-
- That's from pgpdoc2.txt. Hope it helps. You might
wish to set up your mail
- user agent to invoke this command upon exiting your
default message editor,
- with "message.txt" set to whatever your editor calls
the temporary message
- file.
7.8.4. Why isn't PGP easier to use?
- Compared to other possible crypto applications (like
digital money or voting systems), it is actually _very_
easy to use
- semantic gap...learning
7.8.5. How should I learn PGP?
7.8.6. "What's the status of PGP integration with other programs?"
+ Editors
+ emacs
+ emacs supports pgp, probably in various flavors (I've
seen several reports of different packages)..the built-
in language certainly helps
- Rick Busdiecker has an emacs front
end to PGP available
- Jin S. Choi once described a
package he wrote in elisp which supported GNU emacs:
"mailcrypt"
- there are probably many more
+ Mailers
- That is, are there any mailers that have a good link to
PGP? Hooks into existing mailers are needed
+ emacs
+ emacs supports pgp, probably in various flavors (I've
seen several reports of different packages)..the built-
in language certainly helps
- Rick Busdiecker has an emacs front
end to PGP available
- Jin S. Choi once described a
package he wrote in elisp which supported GNU emacs:
"mailcrypt"
- there are probably many more
- elm
- Eudora
+ PGP sendmail, etc.
- "Get the PGPsendmail Suite, announced here a few days
ago. It's available for anonymous ftp from:
ftp.atnf.csiro.au: pub/people/rgooch (Australia)
ftp.dhp.com: pub/crypto/pgp/PGPsendmail(U.S.A.)
ftp.ox.ac.uk: src/security (U.K.)... It works by
wrapping around the regular sendmail programme, so
you get automatic encryption for all mailers, not just
Rmail. " [Richard Gooch, alt.security.pgp, 1994-07-10]
+ MIME
- MIME and PGP
- [the following material taken from an announcement
forwarded to the Cypherpunks list by
remijn@athena.research.ptt.nl, 1994-07-05]
- "MIME [RFC-1341, RFC-1521] defines a format and
general framework for the representation of a wide
variety of data types in Internet mail. This document
defines one particular type of MIME data, the
application/pgp type, for "pretty good" privacy,
authentication, and encryption in Internet mail. The
application/pgp MIME type is intended to facilitate the
wider interoperation of private mail across a wide
variety of hardware and software platforms.
+ Newsreaders
- useful for automatic signing/verification, and e-mail
from withing newsreader
- yarn
- tin
- The "yarn" newsreader reportedly has PGP built in.
7.8.7. "How often should I change my key or keys?"
- Hal Finney points out that many people seem to think PGP
keys are quasi-permanent. In fact, never changing one's key
is an invitation to disaster, as keys may be compromised in
various ways (keystroke capture programs, diskettes left
lying around, even rf monitoring) and may conceivably be
cracked.
- "
+ "What is a good interval for key changes? I would suggest
every year or so
- makes sense, especially if infrastructure can be
developed to make it easier
- to propagate key changes. Keys should be overlapped in
time, so that you make
- a new key and start using it, while continuing to support
the old key for a
- time.
- Hal also recommends that remailer sites change their keys
even more frequently, perhaps monthly.
7.9. Keys, Key Signings, and Key Servers
7.9.1. Web of trust vs. heierarchical key management
- A key innovations of Phil Zimmermann was the use of a "web
of trust" model for distributed trust in keys.
- locality, users bear costs
- by contrast, government estimates $1-2 B a year to run key
certification agencies for a large fraction of the
population
- "PGP is about choice and constructing a web of trust that
suits your needs. PGP supports a completely decentralized,
personalized web of trust and also the most highly
structured bureaucratic centralized scheme you could
imagine. One problem with relying solely on a personalized
web of trust is that it limitsyour universe of
correspondents. We can't expect Phil Zimmermann and a few
well-known others to sign everyone's key, and I would not
want to limit my private correspondence to just those
people I know and trust plus those people whose keys have
been signed by someone I know and trust." [William
Stallings, SLED key verification, alt.security.pgp, 1994-09-
01]
7.9.2. Practical approaches to signing the keys of others
+ sign keys of folks you know and wish to communicate with
- face-to-face encounters ("Here is my key.")
+ trust--to varying extents--the keys signed by others you
know
- web-of-trust
- trust--to a lesser extent--the keys of people in key
registries
7.9.3. Key Servers
+ There are several major sites which appear to be stable
+ MIT PGP Public Key Server
- via www.eff.org
+ Vesselin Bontchev at University of Hamburg operates a
very stable one:
- Ftp: ftp.informatik.uni-hamburg.de
IP: 134.100.4.42
Dir: /pub/virus/crypt/pgp/
File: pubkring.pgp
E-Mail: pgp-public-keys@fbihh.informatik.uni-hamburg.de
- pgpkeys.io.com
+ http://martigny.ai.mit.edu/~bal/pks-commands.html
- This is a PGP keyserver in Zurich.
-
7.9.4. Use of PGP key fingerprints
- "One of the better uses for key fingerprints is for
inclusion in signature files and other places that a key
itself is too bulky. By widespread dissemination of the
fingerprint, the chances of a bogus key being undetected
are decreased, since there are more channels for the
fingerprint to get to recipients, and more channels for the
owner of a key to see any bogus fingerprints out on the
net. [Bill Stewart, 1994-08-31]
7.9.5. "How should address changes be handled? Do old keys have to
be revoked?"
- Future versions of PGP may handle better
- One way is to issue .... "User-id revocation certificates
are a *good* idea and the PGP key format allows for them -
maybe one day PGP will do something about it." [Paul Allen,
alt.security.pgp, 1994-07-01]
- Persistent e-mail addresses is one approach. Some people
are using organization like the ACM to provide this (e.g.,
Phil Zimmermann is prz@acm.org). Others are using remapping
services. For example, "I signed up with the SLED (Stable
Large E-mail Database), which is a cross-referencing
database for linking old, obsolete E-mail addresses with
current ones over the course of time.... Anyone using this
key will always be able to find me on the SLED by
conducting a search with "blbrooks..." as the keyword. Thus
my key and associated sigs always remain good.... If you
are interested in the SLED, its address is
sled@drebes.com." [Robert Brooks, alt.security.pgp, 1994-07-
01]
7.9.6. "How can I ensure that my keys have not been tampered with?"
+ Keep your private key secure
+ if on an unsecured machine, take steps to protect it
- offlline storage (Perry Metzger loads his key(s) every
morning, and removes it when he leaves the machine)
+ memorize your PGP passphrase and don't write it down, at
least not anywhere near where the private key is
available
- sealed envelopes with a lawyer, safe deposit boxes,
etc., are possibilities
- given the near-impossibility of recovering one's files
if the passphrase is lost permanently, I recommend
storing it _someplace_, despite the slight loss in
security (this is a topic of debate...I personally feel
a lot more comfortable knowing my memory is backed up
somewhere)
- Colin Plumb has noted that if someone has accesss to your
personal keyring, they also probably have access to your
PGP program and could make modifications to it *directly*.
- Derek Atkins answered a similar question on sci.crypt:
"Sure. You can use PGP to verify your keyring, and using
the web-of-trust, you can then have it verify your
signatures all the keys that you signed, and recurse
through your circle-of-friends. To verify that your own
key was not munged, you can sign something with your secret
key and then try to verify it. This will ensure that your
public key wasn't munged." [Derek Atkins, sci.crypt, 1994-
07-06]
7.9.7. "Why are key revocations needed?"
- Key revocation is the "ebb-of-trust"
- "There are a number of real reasons. Maybe you got coerced
into signing the key, or you think that maybe the key was
signed incorrectly, or maybe that person no longer uses
that email address, because they lost the account, or that
maybe you don't believe that the binding of key to userID
is valid for any number of reasons." [Derek Atkins, 4-28-
94]
7.9.8. "Is-a-person" registries
+ There have been proposals that governments could and should
create registries of "legal persons." This is known in the
crypto community as "is-a-person" credentialling, and
various papers (notably Fiat-Shamir) have dealt with issues
- of spoofing by malicious governments
- of the dangers of person-tracking
+ We need to be very careful here!
- this could limit the spread of 'ad hoc crypto' (by which
I mean the use of locally-generated keys for reasons
other than personal use...digital cash, pseudonyms etc.)
- any system which "issues" permission slips to allow keys
to be generated is dangerous!
+ Could be an area that governments want to get into.
- a la Fiat-Shamir "passport" issues (Murdoch, Libyan
example)
- I favor free markets--no limitations on which registries I
can use
7.9.9. Keyservers (this list is constantly changing, but most share
keys, so all one needs is one). Send "help" message. For
current information, follow alt.security.pgp.
- about 6000 keys on the main keyservers, as of 1994-08.
- pgp-public-keys@martigny.ai.mit.edu
- pgp-public-keys@dsi.unimi.it
- pgp-public-keys@kub.nl
- pgp-public-keys@sw.oz.au
- pgp-public-keys@kiae.su
- pgp-public-keys@fbihh.informatick.uni-hamburg.de
- and wasabi.io.com offers public keys by finger (I couldn't
get it to work)
7.9.10. "What are key fingerprints and why are they used?"
- "Distributing the key fingerprint allows J. Random Human to
correlate a key supplied via one method with that supplied
via another. For example, now that I have the fingerprint
for the Betsi key, I can verify whether any other alleged
Betsi key I see is real or not.....It's a lot easier to
read off & cross-check 32-character fingerprints than the
entire key block, especially as signatures are added and
the key block grows in size." [Paul Robichaux, 1994-08-29]
7.9.11. Betsi
- Bellcore
- key signing
7.9.12. on attacks on keyservers...
+ flooding attacks on the keyservers have started; this may
be an attempt to have the keyservers shut down by using
obscene, racist, sexist phrases as key names (Cypherpunks
would not support shutting down a site for something so
trivial as abusive, offensive language, but many others
would.)
- "It appears that some childish jerk has had a great time
generating bogus PGP keys and uploading them to the
public keyservers. Here are some of the keys I found on a
keyserver:...[keys elided]..." [staalesc@ifi.uio.no,
alt.security.pgp, 1994-09-05]
7.10. PGP Front Ends, Shells, and Tools
7.10.1. Many can be found at this ftp site:
+ ftp.informatik.uni-hamburg.de:/pub/virus/crypt/pgp/shells/
- for various shells and front-ends for PGP
7.10.2. William Stallings had this to say in a Usenet post:
- "PGPShell: runs directly on the DOS version, doesn't need
Windows. Nice, simple interface. freeware
"PGP Winfront: freeware windows front end. Uses a "control
panel" style, with many options displayed in a compact
fashion.
"WinPGP: shareware ($45). Uses a drop-down menu style,
common to many Windows applications." [William Stallings,
Looking for PGP front end, alt.security, 1994-08-31]
7.10.3. Rick Busdiecker has an emacs front end to
PGP available
7.10.4. Pr0duct Cypher's tools:
+ ftp.informatik.uni-
hamburg.de:/pub/virus/crypt/pgp/tools/PGPTools.tar.gz
- Pr0duct Cypher's tools, and other tools in general
7.11. Other Crypto Programs And Tools
7.11.1. Other Ciphers and Tools
- RIPEM
- PEM
- MD5
+ SFS (Secure FileSystem) 1.0
- "SFS (Secure FileSystem) is a set of programs which
create and manage a number of encrypted disk volumes, and
runs under both DOS and Windows. Each volume appears as
a normal DOS drive, but all data stored on it is encryped
at the individual-sector level....SFS 1.1 is a
maintenance release which fixes a few minor problems in
1.0, and adds a number of features suggested by users.
More details on changes are given in in the README file."
[Peter Gutmann, sci.crypt, 1994-08-25]
- not the same thing as CFS!
- 512-bit key using a MDC/SHS hash. (Fast)
- only works on a386 or better (says V. Bontchev)
- source code not available?
- implemented as a device driver (rather than a TSR, like
SecureDrive)
- "is vulnerable to a special form of attack, which was
mentioned once here in sci.crypt and is described in
detaills in the SFS documentation. Take a loot at the
section "Encryption Considerations"." [Vesselin Bontchev,
sci.crypt, 1994-07-01]
- Comparing SFS to SecureDrive: "Both packages are
approximately equal in terms of user interface, but SFS
seems to be quite a bit faster. And comments from
various people (previous message thread) seems to
indicate that it is more "secure" as well." [Bill Couture
, sci.crypt, 1994-0703]
+ SecureDrive
- encrypts a disk (always be very careful!)
- SecureDrive 1.3D, 128-bit IDEA cypher is based on an MD5
hash of the passphrase
- implemented as a TSR (rather than a device driver, like
CFS)
- source code available
+ Some problems reported (your mileage may vary)
- "I have been having quite a bit of difficulty with my
encrypted drive mangling files. After getting secure
drive 1.3d installed on my hard drive, I find that
various files are being corrupted and many times after
accessing the drive a bunch of crosslinked files are
present." [Vaccinia@uncvx1.oit.unc.edu, 1994-07-01]
- Others report being happy with, under both DOS and
Windows
- no OS/2 or Mac versions reported; some say an OS/2 device
driver will have to be used (such as Stacker for OS/2
uses)
+ SecureDevice
- "If you can't find it elsewhere, I have it at
ftp://ftp.ee.und.ac.za/pub/crypto/secdev13.arj, but
that's at the end of a saturated 64kbps link." [Alan
Barrett, 1994-07-01]
7.11.2. MDC and SHS (same as SHA?)
- "The MDC cyphers are believed to be as strong as it is
difficult to invert the cryptographic hash function they
are using. SHS was designed by the NSA and is believed to
be secure. There might be other ways to attack the MDC
cyphers, but nobody who is allowed to speak knows such
methods." [Vesselin Bontchev, sci.crypt, 1994-07-01]
+ Secure Hash Standard's algorithm is public, and hence can
be analyzed and tested for weaknesses (in strong contrast
with Skipjack).
- may replace MD5 in future versions of PGP (a rumor)
- Speed of MDC: "It's a speed tradeoff. MDC is a few times
faster than IDEA, so SFS is a few times faster than
SecureDrive. But MDC is less proven." [Colin Plumb,
sci.crypt, 1994-07-04]
+ Rumors of problems with SHA
- "The other big news is a security problem with the Secure
Hash Algorithm (SHA), discussed in the Apr 94 DDJ. The
cryptographers at NSA have found a problem with the
algorithm. They won't tell anyone what it is, or even
how serious it is, but they promise a fix soon. Everyone
is waiting with baited breath." [Bruce Schneier, reprot
on Eurocrypt '94, 1994-07-01]
7.11.3. Stego programs
+ DOS
- S-Tools (or Stools?). DOS? Encrypts in .gif and .wav
(SoundBlaster format) files. Can set to not indicate
encrypted files are inside.
- Windows
+ Macintosh
- Stego
+ sound programs
- marielsn@Hawaii.Edu (Nathan Mariels) has written a
program which "takes a file and encrypts it with IDEA
using a MD5 hash of the password typed in by the user.
It then stores the file in the lowest bit (or bits,
user selectable) of a sound file."
7.11.4. "What about "Pretty Good Voice Privacy" or "Voice PGP" and
Other Speech Programs?"
+ Several groups, including one led by Phil Zimmermann, are
said to be working on something like this. Most are using
commercially- and widely-available sound input boards, a la
"SoundBlaster" boards.
- proprietary hardware or DSPs is often a lose, as people
won't be able to easily acquire the hardware; a software-
only solution (possibly relying on built-in hardware, or
readily-available add-in boards, like SoundBlasters) is
preferable.
+ Many important reasons to do such a project:
- proliferate more crypto tools and systems
- get it out ahead of "Digital Telephony II" and Clipper-
type systems; make the tools so ubiquitous that outlawing
them is too difficult
- people understand voice communcations in a more natural
way than e-,mail, so people who don't use PGP may
nevertheless use a voice encryption system
+ Eric Blossom has his own effort, and has demonstrated
hardware at Cypherpunks meetings:
- "At this moment our primary efforts are on developing a
family of extensible protocols for both encryption and
voice across point to point links. We indend to use
existing standards where ever possible.
"We are currently planning on building on top of the RFCs
for PPP (see RFCs 1549, 1548, and 1334). The basic idea
is to add a new Link Control Protocol (or possibly a
Network Control Protocol) that will negotiate base and
modulus and perform DH key exchange. Some forms of
Authentication are already supported by RFCs. We're
looking at others." [Eric Blossom, 1994-04-14]
+ Building on top of multimedia capabilities of Macintoshes
and Windows may be an easier approach
- nearly all Macs and Windows machines will be
multimedia/audiovisual-capable soon
- "I realize that it is quite possible to design a secure
phone
with a Vocoder, a modem and some cpu power to do the
encryption, but I think that an easier solution may be on
the horizon. ....I believe that Microsoft and many others
are exploring hooking phones to PCs so people can do
things like ship pictures of their weekend fun to
friends. When PC's can easily access phone
communications, then developing encrypted conversations
should be as easy as programming for Windows :-)."
[Peter Wayner, 1993--07-08]
7.11.5. Random Number Generators
- A huge area...
+ Chaotic systems, pendula
- may be unexpected periodicities (phase space maps show
basins of attraction, even though behavior is seemingly
random)
7.11.6. "What's the situation on the dispute between NIST and RSADSI
over the DSS?"
- NIST claims it doesn't infringe patents
- RSADSI bought the Schnorr patent and claims DSS infringes
it
- NIST makes no guarantees, nor does it indemnify users
[Reginald Braithwaite-Lee, talk.politics.crypto, 1994-07-
04]
7.11.7. "Are there any programs like telnet or "talk" that use pgp?"
- "Don't know about Telnet, but I'd like to see "talk"
secured like that... It exists. (PGP-ized ytalk, that is.)
Have a look at ftp.informatik.uni-
hamburg.de:/pub/virus/crypto/pgp/tools/pgptalk.2.0.tar.gz"
[Vesselin Bontchev, alt.security.pgp, 1994-07-4]
7.11.8. Digital Timestamping
+ There are two flavors:
- toy or play versions
- real or comercial version(s)
+ For a play version, send a message to
"timestamp@lorax.mv.com" and it will be timestamped and
returned. Clearly this is not proof of much, has not been
tested in court, and relies solely on the reputation of the
timestamper. (A fatal flaw: is trivial to reset system
clocks on computes and thereby alter dates.)
- "hearsay" equivalent: time stamps by servers that are
*not* using the "widely witnessed event" approach of
Haber and Stornetta
- The version of Haber and Stornetta is of course much more
impressive, as it relies on something more powerful than
mere trust that they have set the system clocks on their
computers correctly!
7.12. Legal Issues with PGP
7.12.1. "What is RSA Data Security Inc.'s position on PGP?"
I. They were strongly opposed to early versions
II. objections
- infringes on PKP patents (claimed infringements, not
tested in court, though)
- breaks the tight control previously seen
- brings unwanted attention to public key approaches (I
think PGP also helped RSA and RSADSI)
- bad blood between Zimmermann and Bidzos
III. objections
- infringes on PKP patents (claimed infringements, not
tested in court, though)
- breaks the tight control previously seen
- brings unwanted attention to public key approaches (I
think PGP also helped RSA and RSADSI)
- bad blood between Zimmermann and Bidzos
IV. Talk of lawsuits, actions, etc.
V. The 2.6 MIT accomodation may have lessened the tension;
purely speculative
7.12.2. "Is PGP legal or illegal"?
7.12.3. "Is there still a conflict between RSADSI and PRZ?"
- Apparently not. The MIT 2.6 negotiations seem to have
buried all such rancor. At least officially. I hear there's
still animosity, but it's no longer at the surface. (And
RSADSI is now facing lawsuits and patent suits.)
7.13. Problems with PGP, Flaws, Etc.
7.13.1. Speculations on possible attacks on PGP
+ There are periodically reports of problems, most just
rumors. These are swatted-down by more knowledgeable
people, for the most part. True flaws may exist, of course,
as in any piece of software.
- Colin Plumb acknowledged a flaw in the random number
generation process in PGP 2.6, to be fixed in later
versions.
+ spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt
- rumors about security of PGP versions
- selective prosecution of PGP users
- death threats (a la against Bidzos)
- sowing confusion in the user community
- fragmenting it (perhaps via multiple, noninteroperable
versions...such as we're beginning to see now?)
7.13.2. What does the NSA know about flaws in PGP?
- They're not saying. Ironically, this violates the part of
their charter that deals with making commercial security
stronger. Now that PGP is kosher, they should help to make
it stronger, and certainly should not keep mum about
weaknesses they know about. But for them to help strengthen
PGP is not really too likely.
7.13.3. The PGP timebomb
- (As I've said elsewhere, it all gets very confusing. Many
versions, many sites, many viewpoints, many tools, many
shells, many other things. Fortunately, most of it is
flotsam.)
- I take no point of view--for various reasons--on avoiding
the "timebomb" by using 2.6ui. Here's someone else's
comment: "I would like to take this time to encourage you
to upgrade to 2.6ui which will overcome mit's timebomb and
not exclude PGP 2.3a from decrypting messages.....DON'T USE
MIT's 2.6, use PGP 2.6ui available from soda.berkeley.edu
: /pub/cypherpunks/pgp" [Matrix at Cypherpunks, BLACK
THURSAY!, alt.security.pgp, 1994-09-01]
+ can also be defeated with the "legal kludge":
- ftp.informatik.uni-hamburg.de :
/pub/virus/crypt/pgp/legal_kludge.txt
7.13.4. Spoofing
- "Suitable timing constraints, and in particular real-time
constraints, can be used to hinder, and perhaps defeat,
spoofing attacks. But with a store-and-forward e-mail
system (such as PGP is designed to work with) these
constraints cannot, in general, be set." [Ken Pizzini ,
sci.crypt, 1994-07-05]
7.13.5. "How do we know that PGP doesn't have a back door or some
other major flaw? After all, not all of us are programmers or
cryptologists."
- Yes, but many of us are. Many folks have analyzed the
source code in PGP, have compiled the code themselves (a
fairly common way to get the executable), and have examined
the random number generators, the selection of primes, and
all of the other math.
+ It would take only a single sharp-eyed person to blow the
whistle on a conspiracy to insert flaws or backdoors. This
has not been done. (Though Colin Plumb ackknowledged a
slight weakness in the RNG of 2.6...being fixed.)
- "While having source code available doesn't guarantee
that the program is secure, it helps a lot. Even though
many users are not programmers or cryptographers, others
are, and many of these will examine the code carefully
and publicly yell about weaknesses that they notice or
think they notice. For example, apparently there was a
big discussion here about the xorbytes() bug in PGP 2.6.
Contrast this with a commercial program, where such a bug
might go undetected for years." [Paul Rubin,
alt.security.pgp, 1994-09-06]
7.13.6. "Can I run PGP on a machine I don't control, e.g., the campus
computer system?"
- Sure, but the sysops and others may then have access to
your key and passphrase. Only machines the user directly
controls, and that are adequately firewalled from other
machines, offer reasonable amounts of security. Arguing
about whether 1024-bit keylengths are "enough" is rather
moot if the PGP program is being run on a corportate
computer, or a university network. The illusion of security
may be present, but no real security. Too many people are
kidding themselves that their messages are secure. That
their electronic identities cannot be spoofed.
- I'm not interested in the various elm and emacs PGP
packages (several such shells and wrappers exist). Any
sysop can not only obtain your secret key, stored on
hissystem, but he can also capture your passphrase as you
feed it to the PGP program (assuming you do...many people
automate this part as well). Since this sysop or one of his
cronies can then compromise your mail, sign messages and
contracts as "you," I consider this totally unacceptable.
Others apparently don't.
- What can be done? Many of us only run PGP on home machines,
or on machines we directly control. Some folks who use PGP
on such machines at least take steps to better secure
things....Perry Metzger, for example, once described the
multi-stage process he went through each day to reload his
key material in a way he felt was quasi-safe.
- Until the "Internet-in-a-box" or TIA-type products are more
widespread, many people will be connecting home or office
machines to other systems they don't control. (To put this
in sharper focus: do you want your electronic money being
run out of an account that your sysop and his friends can
monitor? Not hardly. "Electronic purses," which may be
smart cards, Newton-like PDAs, or dongle-like rings or
pendants, are clearly needed. Another entire discussion.)
7.14. The Future of PGP
7.14.1. "Does PGP help or hurt public key methods in general and RSA
Data Security Inc. in particular?"
- The outcome is not final, but on balance I think the
position of RSADSI is helped by the publicity PGP has
generated. Users of PGP will "graduate" to fully-licensed
versions, in many cases. Corporations will then use
RSADSI's products.
+ Interestingly, PGP could do the "radical" things that
RSADSI was not prepared to do. (Uses familiar to
Cypherpunks.)
- bypassing export restrictions is an example of this
- incorporation into experimental digital cash systems
- Parasitism often increases the rate of evolution. Certainly
PGP has helped to light a fire under RSADSI.
7.14.2. Stealth PGP
- Xenon, Nik, S-Tools,
7.14.3. "Should we work on a more advanced version, a *Really Good
Privacy*?"
- easier said than done...strong committment of time
- not clear what is needed...
7.14.4. "Can changes and improvements be made to PGP?"
- I consider it one of the supreme ironies of our age that
Phil Zimmermann has denounced Tom Rollins for making
various changes to a version of PGP he makes available.
+ Issues:
- Phil's reputation, and that of PGP
- intellectual property
- GNU Public license
- the mere name of PGP
- Consider that RSA said much the same thing, that PGP
would degrade the reputation of public key (esp. as Phil
was an "amateur," the same exact phrasing PRZ uses to
criticize Tom Rollins!)
- I'm not taking a stand here....I don't know the details.
Just some irony.
7.15. Loose Ends
7.15.1. Security measures on login, passwords, etc.
- Avoid entering passwords over the Net (such as in rlogins
or telnets). If someone or some agent asks for your
password, be paranoid.
- Can use encrypted telnet, or something like Kerberos, to
avoid sending passwords in the clear between machines. Lots
of approaches, almost none of them commonly used (at least
I never see them).
8. Anonymity, Digital Mixes, and Remailers
8.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
8.2. SUMMARY: Anonymity, Digital Mixes, and Remailers
8.2.1. Main Points
- Remailers are essential for anonymous and pseudonymous
systems, because they defeat traffic analysis
- Cypherpunks remailers have been one of the major successes,
appearing at about the time of the Kleinpaste/Julf
remailer(s), but now expanding to many sites
- To see a list of sites: finger remailer-
list@kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu
( or http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html)
- Anonymity in general is a core idea
8.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
- Remailers make the other technologies possible
8.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
- Very little has been written (formally, in books and
journals) about remailers
- David Chaum's papers are a start
8.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
- This remains one of the most jumbled and confusing
sections, in my opinion. It needs a lot more reworking and
reorganizing.
+ Partly this is because of several factors
- a huge number of people have worked on remailers,
contributing ideas, problems, code, and whatnot
- there are many versions, many sites, and the sites change
from day to day
- lots of ideas for new features
- in a state of flux
- This is an area where actual experimentation with remailers
is both very easy and very instructive...the "theory" of
remailers is straighforward (compared to, say, digital
cash) and the learning experience is better than theory
anyway.
- There are a truly vast number of features, ideas,
proposals, discussion points, and other such stuff. No FAQ
could begin to cover the ground covered in the literally
thousands of posts on remailers.
8.3. Anonymity and Digital Pseudonyms
8.3.1. Why is anonymity so important?
- It allows escape from past, an often-essential element of
straighening out (an important function of the Western
frontier, the French Foreign Legion, etc., and something we
are losing as the dossiers travel with us wherever we go)
- It allows new and diverse types of opinions, as noted below
- More basically, anonymity is important because identity is
not as important as has been made out in our dossier
society. To wit, if Alice wishes to remain anonymous or
pseudonymous to Bob, Bob cannot "demand" that she provide
here "real" name. It's a matter of negotiation between
them. (Identity is not free...it is a credential like any
other and cannot be demanded, only negotiated.)
- Voting, reading habits, personal behavior...all are
examples where privacy (= anonymity, effectively) are
critical. The next section gives a long list of reasons for
anonymity.
8.3.2. What's the difference between anonymity and pseudonymity?
+ Not much, at one level...we often use the term "digital
pseudonym" in a strong sense, in which the actual identity
cannot be deduced easily
- this is "anonymity" in a certain sense
- But at another level, a pseudonym carries reputations,
credentials, etc., and is _not_ "anonymous"
- people use pseudonyms sometimes for whimsical reasons
(e.g., "From spaceman.spiff@calvin.hobbes.org Sep 6, 94
06:10:30"), sometimes to keep different mailing lists
separate (different personnas for different groups), etc.
8.3.3. Downsides of anonymity
- libel and other similar dangers to reputations
+ hit-and-runs actions (mostly on the Net)
+ on the other hand, such rantings can be ignored (KILL
file)
- positive reputations
- accountability based on physical threats and tracking is
lost
+ Practical issue. On the Cypherpunks list, I often take
"anonymous" messages less seriously.
- They're often more bizarre and inflammatory than ordinary
posts, perhaps for good reason, and they're certainly
harder to take seriously and respond to. This is to be
expected. (I should note that some pseudonyms, such as
Black Unicorn and Pr0duct Cypher, have established
reputable digital personnas and are well worth replying
to.)
- repudiation of debts and obligations
+ infantile flames and run-amok postings
- racism, sexism, etc.
- like "Rumormonger" at Apple?
- but these are reasons for pseudonym to be used, where the
reputation of a pseudonym is important
+ Crimes...murders, bribery, etc.
- These are dealt with in more detail in the section on
crypto anarchy, as this is a major concern (anonymous
markets for such services)
8.3.4. "How will privacy and anonymity be attacked?"
- the downsides just listed are often cited as a reason we
can't have "anonymity"
- like so many other "computer hacker" items, as a tool for
the "Four Horsemen": drug-dealers, money-launderers,
terrorists, and pedophiles.
- as a haven for illegal practices, e.g., espionage, weapons
trading, illegal markets, etc.
+ tax evasion ("We can't tax it if we can't see it.")
- same system that makes the IRS a "silent partner" in
business transactions and that gives the IRS access to--
and requires--business records
+ "discrimination"
- that it enables discrimination (this _used_ to be OK)
- exclusionary communities, old boy networks
8.3.5. "How will random accusations and wild rumors be controlled in
anonymous forums?"
- First off, random accusations and hearsay statements are
the norm in modern life; gossip, tabloids, rumors, etc. We
don't worry obsessively about what to do to stop all such
hearsay and even false comments. (A disturbing trend has
been the tendency to sue, or threaten suits. And
increasingly the attitude is that one can express
_opinions_, but not make statements "unless they can be
proved." That's not what free speech is all about!)
- Second, reputations matter. We base our trust in statements
on a variety of things, including: past history, what
others say about veracity, external facts in our
possession, and motives.
8.3.6. "What are the legal views on anonymity?"
+ Reports that Supreme Court struck down a Southern law
requiring pamphlet distributors to identify themselves. 9I
don't have a cite on this.)
- However, Greg Broiles provided this quote, from _Talley
v. State of California_, 362 U.S. 60, 64-65, 80 S.Ct.
536, 538-539 (1960) : "Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets,
brochures and even books have played an important role in
the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from
time to time throughout history have been able to
criticize oppressive practices and laws either
anonymously or not at all."
Greg adds: "It later says "Even the Federalist Papers,
written in favor of the adoption of our Constitution,
were published under fictitious names. It is plain that
anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most
constructive purposes." [Greg Broiles, 1994-04-12]
+ And certainly many writers, journalists, and others use
pseudonyms, and have faced no legal action.
- Provided they don't use it to evade taxes, evade legal
judgments, commit fraud, etc.
- I have heard (no cites) that "going masked for the purpose
of going masked" is illegal in many jurisdictions. Hard to
believe, as many other disguises are just as effective and
are presumably not outlawed (wigs, mustaches, makeup,
etc.). I assume the law has to do with people wearning ski
masks and such in "inappropriate" places. Bad law, if real.
8.3.7. Some Other Uses for Anonymous Systems:
+ Groupware and Anonymous Brainstorming and Voting
- systems based on Lotus Notes and designed to encourage
wild ideas, comments from the shy or overly polite, etc.
- these systems could initially start in meeting and then
be extended to remote sites, and eventually to nationwide
and international forums
- the NSA may have a heart attack over these trends...
+ "Democracy Wall" for encrypted messages
- possibly using time-delayed keys (where even the public
key, for reading the plaintext, is not distributed for
some time)
- under the cover of an electronic newspaper, with all of
the constitutional protections that entails: letters to
the editor can be anonymous, ads need not be screened for
validity, advertising claims are not the responsibility
of the paper, etc.
+ Anonymous reviews and hypertext (for new types of journals)
+ the advantages
- honesty
- increased "temperature" of discourse
+ disadvantages
- increased flames
- intentional misinformation
+ Store-and-forward nodes
- used to facillitate the anonymous voting and anonymous
inquiry (or reading) systems
- Chaum's "mix"
+ telephone forwarding systems, using digital money to pay
for the service
- and TRMs?
+ Fiber optics
+ hard to trace as millions of miles are laid, including
virtually untraceable lines inside private buildings
- suppose government suspects encrypted packets are going
in to the buildings of Apple...absent any direct
knowledge of crimes being aided and abetted, can the
government demand a mapping of messages from input to
output?
- That is, will the government demand full disclosure of
all routings?
- high bandwidth means many degrees of freedom for such
systems to be deployed
+ Within systems, i.e., user logs on to a secure system and
is given access to his own processor
- in a 288-processor system like the NCR/ATT 3600 (or even
larger)
- under his cryptonym he can access certain files, generate
others, and deposit message untraceably in other mail
locations that other agents or users can later retrieve
and forward....
- in a sense, he can use this access to launch his own
agent processes (anonymity is essential for many agent-
based systems, as is digital money)
+ Economic incentives for others to carry mail to other
sites...
- further diffusion and hiding of the true functions
+ Binary systems (two or more pieces needed to complete the
message)
- possibly using viruses and worms to handle the
complexities of distributing these messages
- agents may handle the transfers, with isolation between
the agents, so routing cannot be traced (think of scene
in "Double-Crossed" where bales of marijuana are passed
from plane to boat to chopper to trucks to cars)
- this protects against conspiracies
+ Satellites
+ physical security, in that the satellites would have to
be shot down to halt the broadcasting
+ scenario: WARC (or whomever) grants broadcast rights in
1996 to some country or consortium, which then accepts
any and all paying customers
- cold cash
- the BCCI of satellite operators
+ VSATs, L-Band, Satellites, Low-Earth Orbit
- Very Small Aperture Terminals
- L-Band...what frequency?
+ LEO, as with Motorola's Iridium, offers several
advantages
- lower-power receivers and smaller antennas
- low cost to launch, due to small size and lower need
for 10-year reliability
- avoidance of the "orbital slot" licensing morass
(though I presume some licensing is still involved)
- can combine with impulse or nonsinusoidal transmissions
8.3.8. "True Names"
8.3.9. Many ways to get pseudonyms:
- Telnet to "port 25" or use SLIP connections to alter domain
name; not very secure
- Remailers
8.3.10. "How is Pseudonymity Compromised?"
- slip-ups in style, headers, sig blocks, etc.
- inadvertent revealing, via the remailers
- traffic analysis of remailers (not very likely, at least
not for non-NSA adversaries)
- correlations, violations of the "indistinguishability
principle"
8.3.11. Miscellaneous Issues
- Even digital pseudonyms can get confusing...someone
recently mistook "Tommy the Tourist" for being such an
actual digital pseudonym (when of course that is just
attached to all posts going througha particular remailer).
8.4. Reasons for Anonymity and Digital Pseudonyms (and Untraceable E-
Mail)
8.4.1. (Thre are so many reasons, and this is asked so often, that
I've collected these various reasons here. More can be added,
of course.)
8.4.2. Privacy in general
8.4.3. Physical Threats
+ "corporate terrrorism" is not a myth: drug dealers and
other "marginal" businessmen face this every day
- extortion, threats, kidnappings
+ and many businesses of the future may well be less
"gentlemanly" than the conventional view has it
- witness the bad blood between Intel and AMD, and then
imagine it getting ten times worse
- and national rivalries, even in ostensibly legal
businesses (think of arms dealers), may cause more use of
violence
+ Mafia and other organized crime groups may try to extort
payments or concessions from market participants, causing
them to seek the relative protection of anonymous systems
- with reputations
+ Note that calls for the threatened to turn to the police
for protection has several problems
- the activities may be illegal or marginally illegal
(this is the reason the Mafia can often get involved
and why it may even sometimes have a positive effect,
acting as the cop for illegal activities)
- the police are often too busy to get involved, what
with so much physical crime clogging the courts
- extortion and kidnappings can be done using these very
techniques of cryptoanarchy, thus causing a kind of arms
race
+ battered and abused women and families may need the
equivalent of a "witness protection program"
+ because of the ease of tracing credit card purchases,
with the right bribes and/or court orders (or even
hacking), battered wives may seek credit cards under
pseudonyms
- and some card companies may oblige, as a kind of
politically correct social gesture
+ or groups like NOW and Women Against Rape may even
offer their own cards
- perhaps backed up by some kind of escrow fund
- could be debit cards
+ people who participate in cyberspace businesses may fear
retaliation or extortion in the real world
- threats by their governments (for all of the usual
reasons, plus kickbacks, threats to close them down,
etcl)
- ripoffs by those who covet their success...
8.4.4. Voting
- We take it for granted in Western societies that voting
should be "anonymous"--untraceable, unlinkable
- we don't ask people "What have you got to hide?" or tell
them "If you're doing something anonymously, it must be
illegal."
- Same lesson ought to apply to a lot of things for which the
government is increasingly demanding proof of identity for
+ Anonymous Voting in Clubs, Organizations, Churches, etc.
+ a major avenue for spreading CA methods: "electronic
blackballing," weighted voting (as with number of shares)
+ e.g., a corporation issues "voting tokens," which can
be used to vote anonymously
- or even sold to others (like selling shares, except
selling only the voting right for a specific election
is cheaper, and many people don't much care about
elections)
+ a way to protect against deep pockets lawsuits in, say,
race discrimination cases
- wherein a director is sued for some action the
company takes-anonymity will give him some legal
protection, some "plausible deniability"
+ is possible to set up systems (cf. Salomaa) in which
some "supervotes" have blackball power, but the use of
these vetos is indistinguishable from a standard
majority rules vote
- i.e., nobody, except the blackballer(s), will know
whether the blackball was used!
+ will the government seek to limit this kind of
protocol?
- claiming discrimination potential or abuse of
voting rights?
+ will Justice Department (or SEC) seek to overturn
anonymous voting?
- as part of the potential move to a "full disclosure"
society?
- related to antidiscrimination laws, accountability,
etc.
+ Anonymous Voting in Reputation-Based Systems (Journals,
Markets)
+ customers can vote on products, on quality of service,
on the various deals they've been involved in
- not clear how the voting rights would get distributed
- the idea is to avoid lawsuits, sanctions by vendors,
etc. (as with the Bose suit)
+ Journals
- a canonical example, and one which I must include, as
it combines anonymous refereeing (already standard,
in primitive forms), hypertext (links to reviews),
and basic freedom of speech issues
- this will likely be an early area of use
- this whole area of consumer reviews may be a way to get
CA bandwidth up and running (lots of PK-encrypted
traffic sloshing around the various nets)
8.4.5. Maintenance of free speech
- protection of speech
+ avoiding retaliation for controversial speech
- this speech may be controversial, insulting, horrific,
politically incorrect, racist, sexist, speciesist, and
other horrible...but remailers and anonymity make it all
impossible to stop
- whistleblowing
+ political speech
- KKK, Aryan Resistance League, Black National Front,
whatever
- cf. the "debate" between "Locke" and "Demosthenes" in
Orson Scott Card's novel, "Ender's Game."
- (Many of these reasons are also why 'data havens' will
eventually be set up...indeed, they already exist...homolka
trial, etc.)
8.4.6. Adopt different personnas, pseudonyms
8.4.7. Choice of reading material, viewing habits, etc.
- to prevent dossiers on this being formed, anonymous
purchases are needed (cash works for small items, not for
video rentals, etc.)
+ video rentals
- (Note: There are "laws" making such releases illegal,
but...)
- cable t.v. viewing habits
+ mail-order purchases
- yes, they need your address to ship to, but there may be
cutouts that delink (e.g., FedEx might feature such a
service, someday
8.4.8. Anonymity in Requesting Information, Services, Goods
+ a la the controversy over Caller ID and 900 numbers: people
don't want their telephone numbers (and hence identities)
fed into huge consumer-preference data banks
- of the things they buy, the videos they rent, the books
they read. etc. (various laws protect some of these
areas, like library books, video rentals)
- subscription lists are already a booming resale
market...this will get faster and more finely "tuned"
with electronic subscriptions: hence the desire to
subscribe anonymously
+ some examples of "sensitive" services that anonymity may be
desired in (especially related to computers, modems, BBSes)
+ reading unusual or sensitive groups: alt.sex.bondage,
etc.
- or posting to these groups!
- recent controversy over NAMBLA may make such
protections more desirable to some (and parallel calls
for restrictions!)
- posting to such groups, especially given that records are
perpetual and that government agencies read and file
postings (an utterly trivial thing to do)
- requesting help on personal issues (equivalent to the
"Name Witheld" seen so often)
+ discussing controversial political issues (and who knows
what will be controversial 20 years later when the poster
is seeking a political office, for example?)
- given that some groups have already (1991) posted the
past postings of people they are trying to smear!
+ Note: the difference between posting to a BBS group or
chat line and writing a letter to an editor is
significant
- partly technological: it is vastly easier to compile
records of postings than it is to cut clippings of
letters to editors (though this will change rapidly as
scanners make this easy)
- partly sociological: people who write letters know the
letters will be with the back issues in perpetuity,
that bound issues will preserve their words for many
decades to come (and could conceivably come back to
haunt them), but people who post to BBSes probably
think their words are temporary
+ and there are some other factors
- no editing
- no time delays (and no chance to call an editor and
retract a letter written in haste or anger)
+ and letters can, and often are, written with the
"Name Witheld" signature-this is currently next to
impossible to do on networks
- though some "forwarding" services have informally
sprung up
+ Businesses may wish to protect themselves from lawsuits
over comments by their employees
+ the usual "The opinions expressed here are not those of
my employer" may not be enough to protect an employer
from lawsuits
- imagine racist or sexist comments leading to lawsuits
(or at least being brought up as evidence of the type
of "attitude" fostered by the company, e.g., "I've
worked for Intel for 12 years and can tell you that
blacks make very poor engineers.")
+ employees may make comments that damage the reputations
of their companies
- Note: this differs from the current situation, where
free speech takes priority over company concerns,
because the postings to a BBS are carried widely, may
be searched electronically (e.g., AMD lawyers search
the UseNet postings of 1988-91 for any postings by
Intel employees besmirching the quality or whatever of
AMD chips),
- and so employees of corporations may protect themselves,
and their employers, by adopting pseudonyms
+ Businesses may seek information without wanting to alert
their competitors
- this is currently done with agents, "executive search
firms," and lawyers
- but how will it evolve to handle electronic searches?
+ there are some analogies with filings of "Freedom of
Information Act" requests, and of patents, etc.
+ these "fishing expeditions" will increase with time, as
it becomes profitable for companies to search though
mountains of electronically-filed materials
- environmental impact studies, health and safety
disclosures, etc.
- could be something that some companies specialize in
+ Anonymous Consultation Services, Anonymous Stringers or
Reporters
+ imagine an information broker, perhaps on an AMIX-like
service, with a network of stringers
+ think of the arms deal newsletter writer in Hallahan's
The Trade, with his network of stringers feeding him
tips and inside information
- instead of meeting in secretive locations, a very
expensive proposition (in time and travel), a secure
network can be used
- with reputations, digital pseudonyms, etc.
+ they may not wish their actual identities known
- threats from employers, former employers, government
agencies
+ harassment via the various criminal practices that will
become more common (e.g., the ease with which
assailants and even assassins can be contracted for)
- part of the overall move toward anonymity
- fears of lawsuits, licensing requirements, etc.
+ Candidates for Such Anonymous Consultation Services
+ An arms deals newsletter
- an excellent reputation for accuracy and timely
information
+ sort of like an electronic form of Jane's
- with scandals and government concern
- but nobody knows where it comes from
+ a site that distributes it to subscribers gets it
with another larger batch of forwarded material
- NSA, FBI, Fincen, etc. try to track it down
+ "Technology Insider" reports on all kinds of new
technologies
- patterned after Hoffler's Microelectronics News, the
Valley's leading tip sheet for two decades
- the editor pays for tips, with payments made in two
parts: immediate, and time-dependent, so that the
accuracy of a tip, and its ultimate importance (in
the judgment of the editor) can be proportionately
rewarded
+ PK systems, with contributors able to encrypt and
then publicly post (using their own means of
diffusion)
- with their messages containing further material,
such as authentications, where to send the
payments, etc.
+ Lundberg's Oil Industry Survey (or similar)
- i.e., a fairly conventional newsletter with publicly
known authors
- in this case, the author is known, but the identities
of contributors is well-protected
+ A Conspiracy Newsletter
- reporting on all of the latest theories of
misbehavior (as in the "Conspiracies" section of this
outline)
+ a wrinkle: a vast hypertext web, with contributors
able to add links and nodes
+ naturally, their real name-if they don't care about
real-world repercussions-or one of their digital
pseudonyms (may as well use cryptonyms) is attached
+ various algorithms for reputations
- sum total of everything ever written, somehow
measured by other comments made, by "voting,"
etc.
- a kind of moving average, allowing for the fact
that learning will occur, just as a researcher
probably gets better with time, and that as
reputation-based systems become better
understood, people come to appreciate the
importance of writing carefully
+ and one of the most controversial of all: Yardley's
Intelligence Daily
- though it may come out more than daily!
+ an ex-agent set this up in the mid-90s, soliciting
contributions via an anonymous packet-switching sysem
- refined over the next couple of years
- combination of methods
- government has been trying hard to identify the
editor, "Yardley"
- he offers a payback based on value of the
information, and even has a "Requests" section, and a
Classifed Ad section
- a hypertext web, similar to the Conspiracy Newsletter
above
+ Will Government Try to Discredit the Newsletter With
False Information?
- of course, the standard ploy in reputation-based
systems
+ but Yardley has developed several kinds of filters
for this
- digital pseudonyms which gradually build up
reputations
- cross-checking of his own sort
- he even uses language filters to analyze the text
+ and so what?
- the world is filled with disinformation, rumors,
lies, half-truths, and somehow things go on....
+ Other AMIX-like Anonymous Services
+ Drug Prices and Tips
- tips on the quality of various drugs (e.g.,
"Several reliable sources have told us that the
latest Maui Wowie is very intense, numbers
below...")
+ synthesis of drugs (possibly a separate
subscription)
- designer drugs
- home labs
- avoiding detection
+ The Hackers Daily
- tips on hacking and cracking
- anonymous systems themselves (more tips)
- Product evaluations (anonymity needed to allow honest
comments with more protection against lawsuits)
+ Newspapers Are Becoming Cocerned with the Trend Toward
Paying for News Tips
- by the independent consultation services
- but what can they do?
+ lawsuits are tried, to prevent anonymous tips when
payments are involved
- their lawyers cite the tax evasion and national
security aspects
+ Private Data Bases
+ any organization offering access to data bases must be
concerned that somebody-a disgruntled customer, a
whistleblower, the government, whoever-will call for an
opening of the files
- under various "Data Privacy" laws
- or just in general (tort law, lawsuits, "discovery")
+ thus, steps will be taken to isolate the actual data from
actual users, perhaps via cutouts
+ e.g., a data service sells access, but subcontracts out
the searches to other services via paths that are
untraceable
+ this probably can't be outlawed in general-though any
specific transaction might later be declared illegal,
etc., at which time the link is cut and a new one is
established-as this would outlaw all subcontracting
arrangements!
- i.e., if Joe's Data Service charges $1000 for a
search on widgets and then uses another possibly
transitory (meaning a cutout) data service, the
most a lawsuit can do is to force Joe to stop using
this untraceble service
- levels of indirection (and firewalls that stop the
propagation of investigations)
+ Medical Polls (a la AIDS surveys, sexual practices surveys,
etc.)
+ recall the method in which a participant tosses a coin to
answer a question...the analyst can still recover the
important ensemble information, but the "phase" is lost
- i.e., an individual answering "Yes" to the question
"Have you ever had xyz sex?" may have really answered
"No" but had his answer flipped by a coin toss
+ researchers may even adopt sophisticated methods in which
explicit diaries are kept, but which are then transmitted
under an anonymous mailing system to the researchers
- obvious dangers of authentication, validity, etc.
+ Medical testing: many reasons for people to seek anonymity
- AIDS testing is the preeminent example
- but also testing for conditions that might affect
insurablity or employment (e.g., people may go to
medical havens in Mexico or wherever for tests that might
lead to uninsurability should insurance companies learn
of the "precondition")
+ except in AIDS and STDs, it is probably both illegal and
against medical ethics to offer anonymous consultations
- perhaps people will travel to other countries
8.4.9. Anonymity in Belonging to Certain Clubs, Churches, or
Organizations
+ people fear retaliation or embarassment should their
membership be discovered, now or later
- e.g., a church member who belongs to controversial groups
or clubs
- mainly, or wholly, those in which physical contact or other
personal contact is not needed (a limited set)
- similar to the cell-based systems described elsewhere
+ Candidates for anonymous clubs or organizations
- Earth First!, Act Up, Animal Liberation Front, etc.
- NAMBLA and similar controversial groups
- all of these kinds of groups have very vocal, very visible
members, visible even to the point of seeking out
television coverage
- but there are probably many more who would join these
groups if there identities could be shielded from public
group, for the sake of their careers, their families, etc.
+ ironically, the corporate crackdown on outside activities
considered hostile to the corporation (or exposing them to
secondary lawsuits, claims, etc.) may cause greater use of
anonymous systems
- cell-based membership in groups
- the growth of anonymous membership in groups (using
pseudonyms) has a benefit in increasing membership by
people otherwise afraid to join, for example, a radical
environmental group
8.4.10. Anonymity in Giving Advice or Pointers to Information
- suppose someone says who is selling some illegal or
contraband product...is this also illegal?
- hypertext systems will make this inevitable
8.4.11. Reviews, Criticisms, Feedback
- "I am teaching sections for a class this term, and tomorrow
I am going to: 1) tell my students how to use a remailer,
and 2) solicit anonymous feedback on my teaching.
"I figure it will make them less apprehensive about making
honest suggestions and comments (assuming any of them
bother, of course)." [Patrick J. LoPresti
patl@lcs.mit.edu, alt.privacy.anon-server, 1994-09-08]
8.4.12. Protection against lawsuits, "deep pockets" laws
+ by not allowing the wealth of an entity to be associated
with actions
- this also works by hiding assets, but the IRS frowns on
that, so unlinking the posting or mailing name with
actual entity is usually easier
+ "deep pockets"
- it will be in the interest of some to hide their
identities so as to head off these kinds of lawsuits
(filed for whatever reasons, rightly or wrongly)
- postings and comments may expose the authors to lawsuits
for libel, misrepresentation, unfair competition, and so
on (so much for free speech in these beknighted states)
+ employers may also be exposed to the same suits,
regardless of where their employees posted from
- on the tenuous grounds that an employee was acting on
his employer's behalf, e.g., in defending an Intel
product on Usenet
- this, BTW, is another reason for people to seek ways to
hide some of their assets-to prevent confiscation in deep
pockets lawsuits (or family illnesses, in which various
agencies try to seize assets of anybody they can)
- and the same computers that allow these transactions will
also allow more rapid determination of who has the
deepest pockets!
+ by insulating the entity from repercussions of "sexist" or
"racist" comments that might provoke lawsuits, etc.
- (Don't laugh--many companies are getting worried that
what their employees write on Usenet may trigger lawsuits
against the companies.)
+ many transactions may be deemed illegal in some
jursidictions
+ even in some that the service or goods provider has no
control over
- example: gun makers being held liable for firearms
deaths in the District of Columbia (though this was
recently cancelled)
- the maze of laws may cause some to seek anonymity to
protect themselves against this maze
+ Scenario: Anonymous organ donor banks
+ e.g., a way to "market" rare blood types, or whatever,
without exposing one's self to forced donation or other
sanctions
- "forced donation" involves the lawsuits filed by the
potential recipient
- at the time of offer, at least...what happens when the
deal is consummated is another domain
- and a way to avoid the growing number of government
stings
8.4.13. Journalism and Writing
+ writers have had a long tradtion of adopting pseudonyms,
for a variety of reasons
- because they couldn't get published under their True
Names, because they didn't _want_ their true names
published, for the fun of it, etc.
- George Elliot, Lewis Carroll, Saki, Mark Twain, etc.
- reporters
+ radio disc jockeys
- a Cypherpunk who works for a technology company uses the
"on air personna" of "Arthur Dent" ("Hitchhiker's Guide")
for his part-time radio broadcasting job...a common
situation, he tells me
+ whistleblowers
- this was an early use
+ politically sensitive persons
- "
+ I subsequently got myself an account on anon.penet.fi as
the "Lt.
- Starbuck" entity, and all later FAQ updates were from
that account.
- For reasons that seemed important at the time, I took
it upon myself to
- become the moderator/editor of the FAQ."
-
+ Example: Remailers were used to skirt the publishing ban on
the Karla Homolka case
- various pseudonymous authors issued regular updates
- much consternation in Canada!
+ avoidance of prosecution or damage claims for writing,
editing, distributing, or selling "damaging" materials is
yet another reason for anonymous systems to emerge: those
involved in the process will seek to immunize themselves
from the various tort claims that are clogging the courts
- producers, distributors, directors, writers, and even
actors of x-rated or otherwise "unacceptable" material
may have to have the protection of anonymous systems
- imagine fiber optics and the proliferation of videos and
talk shows....bluenoses and prosecutors will use "forum
shopping" to block access, to prosecute the producers,
etc.
8.4.14. Academic, Scientific, or Professional
- protect other reputations (professional, authorial,
personal, etc.)
- wider range of actions and behaviors (authors can take
chances)
- floating ideas out under pseudonyms
- later linking of these pseudonyms to one's own identity, if
needed (a case of credential transfer)
- floating unusual points of view
- Peter Wayner writes: "I would think that many people who
hang out on technical newsgroups would be very familiar
with the anonymous review procedures practiced by academic
journals. There is some value when a reviewer can speak
their mind about a paper without worry of revenge. Of
course everyone assures me that the system is never really
anonymous because there are alwys only three or four people
qualified to review each paper. :-) ....Perhaps we should
go out of our way to make anonymous, technical comments
about papers and ideas in the newsgroups to fascilitate the
development of an anonymous commenting culture in
cypberspace." [Peter Wayner, 1993-02-09]
8.4.15. Medical Testing and Treatment
- anonymous medical tests, a la AIDS testing
8.4.16. Abuse, Recovery
+ personal problem discussions
- incest, rape, emotional, Dear Abby, etc.
8.4.17. Bypassing of export laws
- Anonymous remailers have been useful for bypassing the
ITARs...this is how PGP 2.6 spread rapidly, and (we hope!)
untraceably from MIT and U.S. sites to offshore locations.
8.4.18. Sex groups, discussions of controversial topics
- the various alt.sex groups
- People may feel embarrassed, may fear repercussions from
their employers, may not wish their family and friends to
see their posts, or may simply be aware that Usenet is
archived in many, many places, and is even available on CD-
ROM and will be trivially searchable in the coming decades
+ the 100% traceability of public postings to UseNet and
other bulletin boards is very stifling to free expression
and becomes one of the main justifications for the use of
anonymous (or pseudononymous) boards and nets
- there may be calls for laws against such compilation, as
with the British data laws, but basically there is little
that can be done when postings go to tens of thousands of
machines and are archived in perpetuity by many of these
nodes and by thousands of readers
- readers who may incorporate the material into their own
postings, etc. (hence the absurdity of the British law)
8.4.19. Avoiding political espionage
+ TLAs in many countries monitor nearly all international
communications (and a lot of domestic communications, too)
- companies and individuals may wish to avoid reprisals,
sanctions, etc.
- PGP is reported to be in use by several dissident groups,
and several Cypherpunks are involved in assisting them.
- "...one legitimate application is to allow international
political groups or companies to exchange authenticated
messages without being subjected to the risk of
espionage/compromise by a three letter US agency, foreign
intelligence agency, or third party." [Sean M. Dougherty,
alt.privacy.anon-server, 1994-09-07]
8.4.20. Controversial political discussion, or membership in
political groups, mailing lists, etc.
+ Recall House UnAmerican Activities Committee
- and it's modern variant: "Are you now, or have you ever
been, a Cypherpunk?"
8.4.21. Preventing Stalking and Harassment
- avoid physical tracing (harassment, "wannafucks," stalkers,
etc.)
- women and others are often sent "wannafuck?" messages from
the males that outnumber them 20-to-1 in many newsgroups--
pseudonyms help.
- given the ease with which net I.D.s can be converted to
physical location information, many women may be worried.
+ males can be concerned as well, given the death threats
issued by, for example, S. Boxx/Detweiler.
- as it happens, S. Boxx threatened me, and I make my home
phone number and location readily known...but then I'm
armed and ready.
8.4.22. pressure relief valve: knowing one can flee or head for the
frontier and not be burdened with a past
- perhaps high rate of recidivism is correlated with this
inability to escape...once a con, marked for life
(certainly denied access to high-paying jobs)
8.4.23. preclude lawsuits, subpoenas, entanglement in the legal
machinery
8.4.24. Business Reasons
+ Corporations can order supplies, information, without
tipping their hand
- the Disney purchase of land, via anonymous cutouts (to
avoid driving the price way up)
- secret ingredients (apocryphally, Coca Cola)
- avoiding the "deep pockets" syndrome mentioned above
- to beat zoning and licensing requirements (e.g., a certain
type of business may not be "permitted" in a home office,
so the homeowner will have to use cutouts to hide from
enforcers)
- protection from (and to) employers
+ employees of corporations may have to do more than just
claim their view are not those of their employer
- e.g., a racist post could expose IBM to sanctions,
charges
+ thus, many employees may have to further insulate their
identities
- blanc@microsoft.com is now
blanc@pylon.com...coincidence?
+ moonlighting employees (the original concern over Black Net
and AMIX)
- employers may have all kinds of concerns, hence the need
for employees to hide their identities
- note that this interects with the licensing and zoning
aspects
- publishers, service-prividers
+ Needed for Certain Kinds of Reputation-Based Systems
+ a respected scientist may wish to float a speculative
idea
- and be able to later prove it was in fact his idea
8.4.25. Protection against retaliation
- whistleblowing
+ organizing boycotts
- (in an era of laws regulating free speech, and "SLAPP"
lawsuits)
+ the visa folks (Cantwell and Siegel) threatening those who
comment with suits
- the law firm that posted to 5,000 groups....also raises
the issue again of why the Net should be subsidized
- participating in public forums
+ as one person threatened with a lawsuit over his Usenet
comments put it:
- "And now they are threatening me. Merely because I openly
expressed my views on their extremely irresponsible
behaviour. Anyways, I have already cancelled the article
from my site and I publicly appologize for posting it in
the first place. I am scared :) I take all my words back.
Will use the anonymous service next time :)"
8.4.26. Preventing Tracking, Surveillance, Dossier Society
+ avoiding dossiers in general
- too many dossiers being kept; anonymity allows people to
at least hold back the tide a bit
+ headhunting, job searching, where revealing one's identity
is not always a good idea
- some headhunters are working for one's current employer!
- dossiers
8.4.27. Some Examples from the Cypherpunks List
+ S, Boxx, aka Sue D. Nym, Pablo Escobar, The Executioner,
and an12070
- but Lawrence Detweiler by any other name
+ he let slip his pseudonym-true name links in several ways
- stylistic cues
- mention of things only the "other" was likely to have
heard
+ sysops acknowledged certain linkings
- *not* Julf, though Julf presumably knew the identity
of "an12070"
+ Pr0duct Cypher
- Jason Burrell points out: "Take Pr0duct Cypher, for
example. Many believe that what (s)he's doing(*) is a
Good Thing, and I've seen him/her using the Cypherpunk
remailers to conceal his/her identity....* If you don't
know, (s)he's the person who wrote PGPTOOLS, and a hack
for PGP 2.3a to decrypt messages written with 2.6. I
assume (s)he's doing it anonymously due to ITAR
regulations." [J.B., 1994-09-05]
+ Black Unicorn
- Is the pseudonym of a Washington, D.C. lawyer (I think),
who has business ties to conservative bankers and
businessmen in Europe, especially Liechtenstein and
Switzerland. His involvement with the Cypherpunks group
caused him to adopt this pseudonym.
- Ironically, he got into a battle with S. Boxx/Detweiler
and threated legal action. This cause a rather
instructive debate to occur.
8.5. Untraceable E-Mail
8.5.1. The Basic Idea of Remailers
- Messages are encrypted, envelopes within envelopes, thus
making tracing based on external appearance impossible. If
the remailer nodes keep the mapping between inputs and
outputs secret, the "trail" is lost.
8.5.2. Why is untraceable mail so important?
+ Bear in mind that "untraceable mail" is the default
situation for ordinary mail, where one seals an envelope,
applies a stamp, and drops it anonymously in a letterbox.
No records are kept, no return address is required (or
confirmed), etc.
- regional postmark shows general area, but not source
mailbox
+ Many of us believe that the current system of anonymous
mail would not be "allowed" if introduced today for the
first time
- Postal Service would demand personalized stamps,
verifiable return addresses, etc. (not foolproof, or
secure, but...)
+ Reasons:
- to prevent dossiers of who is contacting whom from being
compiled
- to make contacts a personal matter
- many actual uses: maintaining pseudonyms, anonymous
contracts, protecting business dealings, etc.
8.5.3. How do Cypherpunks remailers work?
8.5.4. How, in simple terms, can I send anonymous mail?
8.5.5. Chaum's Digital Mixes
- How do digital mixes work?
8.5.6. "Are today's remailers secure against traffic analysis?"
- Mostly not. Many key digital mix features are missing, and
the gaps can be exploited.
+ Depends on features used:
- Reordering (e.g., 10 messages in, 10 messages out)
- Quantization to fixed sizes (else different sizes give
clues)
- Encryption at all stages (up to the customer, of course)
- But probably not, given that current remailers often lack
necessary features to deter traffic analysis. Padding is
iffy, batching is often not done at all (people cherish
speed, and often downcheck remailers that are "too slow")
- Best to view today's remailers as experiments, as
prototypes.
8.6. Remailers and Digital Mixes (A Large Section!)
8.6.1. What are remailers?
8.6.2. Cypherpunks remailers compared to Julf's
+ Apparently long delays are mounting at the penet remailer.
Complaints about week-long delays, answered by:
- "Well, nobody is stopping you from using the excellent
series of cypherpunk remailers, starting with one at
remail@vox.hacktic.nl. These remailers beat the hell out
of anon.penet.fi. Either same day or at worst next day
service, PGP encryption allowed, chaining, and gateways
to USENET." [Mark Terka, The normal delay for
anon.penet.fi?, alt.privacy.anon-server, 1994-08-19]
+ "How large is the load on Julf's remailer?"
- "I spoke to Julf recently and what he really needs is
$750/month and one off $5000 to upgrade his feed/machine.
I em looking at the possibility of sponsorship (but don't
let that stop other people trying).....Julf has buuilt up
a loyal, trusting following of over 100,000 people and
6000 messages/day. Upgrading him seems a good
idea.....Yes, there are other remailers. Let's use them
if we can and lessen the load on Julf." [Steve Harris,
alt.privacy.anon-server, 1994-08-22]
- (Now if the deman on Julf's remailer is this high, seems
like a great chance to deploy some sort of fee-based
system, to pay for further expansion. No doubt many of
the users would drop off, but such is the nature of
business.)
8.6.3. "How do remailers work?"
- (The MFAQ also has some answers.)
- Simply, they work by taking an incoming text block and
looking for instructions on where to send the remaining
text block, and what to do with it (decryption, delays,
postage, etc.)
+ Some remailers can process the Unix mail program(s) outputs
directly, operating on the mail headers
- names of programs...
+ I think the "::" format Eric Hughes came up with in his
first few days of looking at this turned out to be a real
win (perhaps comparable to John McCarthy's decision to use
parenthesized s-expressions in Lisp?).
- it allows arbitary chaining, and all mail messages that
have text in standard ASCII--which is all mailers, I
believe--can then use the Cypherpunks remailers
8.6.4. "What are some uses of remailers?"
- Thi is mostly answered in other sections, outlining the
uses of anonymity and digital pseudonyms: remailers are of
course the enabling technology for anonymity.
+ using remailers to foil traffic analysis
- An interesting comment from someone not part of our
group, in a discussion of proposal to disconnect U.K.
computers from Usenet (because of British laws about
libel, about pornography, and such): "PGP hides the
target. The remailers discard the source info. THe more
paranoid remailers introduce a random delay on resending
to foil traffic analysis. You'd be suprised what can be
done :-).....If you use a chain then the first remailer
knows who you are but the destination is encrypted. The
last remailer knows the destination but cannot know the
source. Intermediate ones know neither." [Malcolm
McMahon, JANET (UK) to ban USENET?, comp.org.eff.talk,
1994-08-30]
- So, word is spreading. Note the emphasis on Cyphepunks-
type remailers, as opposed to Julf-style anonymous
services.
+ options for distributing anonymous messages
+ via remailers
- the conventional approach
- upsides: recipient need not do anything special
- downsides: that's it--recipient may not welcome the
message
+ to a newsgroup
- a kind of message pool
- upsides: worldwide dist
- to an ftp site, or Web-reachable site
- a mailing list
8.6.5. "Why are remailers needed?"
+ Hal Finney summarized the reasons nicely in an answer back
in early 1993.
- "There are several different advantages provided by
anonymous remailers. One of the simplest and least
controversial would be to defeat traffic analysis on
ordinary email.....Two people who wish to communicate
privately can use PGP or some other encryption system to
hide the content of their messages. But the fact that
they are communicating with each other is still visible
to many people: sysops at their sites and possibly at
intervening sites, as well as various net snoopers. It
would be natural for them to desire an additional amount
of privacy which would disguise who they were
communicating with as well as what they were saying.
"Anonymous remailers make this possible. By forwarding
mail between themselves through remailers, while still
identifying themselves in the (encrypted) message
contents, they have even more communications privacy than
with simple encryption.
"(The Cypherpunk vision includes a world in which
literally hundreds or thousands of such remailers
operate. Mail could be bounced through dozens of these
services, mixing in with tens of thousands of other
messages, re-encrypted at each step of the way. This
should make traffic analysis virtually impossible. By
sending periodic dummy messages which just get swallowed
up at some step, people can even disguise _when_ they are
communicating.)" [Hal Finney, 1993-02-23]
"The more controversial vision associated with anonymous
remailers is expressed in such science fiction stories as
"True Names", by Vernor
Vinge, or "Ender's Game", by Orson Scott Card. These
depict worlds in which computer networks are in
widespread use, but in which many people choose to
participate through pseudonyms. In this way they can
make unpopular arguments or participate in frowned-upon
transactions without their activities being linked to
their true identities. It also allows people to develop
reputations based on the quality of their ideas, rather
than their job, wealth, age, or status." [Hal Finney,
1993-02-23]
- "Other advantages of this approach include its extension to
electronic on-line transactions. Already today many
records are kept of our financial dealings - each time we
purchase an item over the phone using a credit card, this
is recorded by the credit card company. In time, even more
of this kind of information may be collected and possibly
sold. One Cypherpunk vision includes the ability to engage
in transactions anonymously, using "digital cash", which
would not be traceable to the participants. Particularly
for buying "soft" products, like music, video, and software
(which all may be deliverable over the net eventually), it
should be possible to engage in such transactions
anonymously. So this is another area where anonymous mail
is important." [Hal Finney, 1993-02-23]
8.6.6. "How do I actually use a remailer?"
+ (Note: Remailer instructions are posted _frequently_. There
is no way I can keep up to date with them here. Consult the
various mailing lists and finger sites, or use the Web
docs, to find the most current instructions, keys, uptimes,
etc._
+ Raph Levien's finger site is very impressive:
+ Raph Levien has an impressive utility which pings the
remailers and reports uptime:
- finger remailer-list@kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu
- or use the Web at
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html
- Raph Levien also has a remailer chaining script at
ftp://kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/raph/premail-
0.20.tar.gz
+ Keys for remailers
- remailer-list@chaos.bsu.edu (Matthew Ghio maintains)
+ "Why do remailers only operate on headers and not the body
of a message? Why aren't signatures stripped off by
remailers?"
- "The reason to build mailers that faithfully pass on the
entire body of
the message, without any kind of alteration, is that it
permits you to
send ANY body through that mailer and rely on its
faithful arrival at the
destination." [John Gilmore, 93-01-01]
- The "::" special form is an exception
- Signature blocks at the end of message bodies
specifically should _not_ be stripped, even though this
can cause security breaches if they are accidentally left
in when not intended. Attempting to strip sigs, which
come in many flavors, would be a nightmare and could
strip other stuff, too. Besides, some people may want a
sig attached, even to an encrypted message.
- As usual, anyone is of course free to have a remailer
which munges message bodies as it sees fit, but I expect
such remailers will lose customers.
- Another possibility is another special form, such as
"::End", that could be used to delimit the block to be
remailed. But it'll be hard getting such a "frill"
accepted.
+ "How do remailers handle subject lines?"
- In various ways. Some ignore it, some preserve it, some
even can accept instructions to create a new subject line
(perhaps in the last remailer).
- There are reasons not to have a subject line propagated
through a chain of remailers: it tags the message and
hence makes traffic analysis trivial. But there are also
reasons to have a subject line--makes it easier on the
recipient--and so these schemes to add a subject line
exist.
+ "Can nicknames or aliases be used with the Cypherpunks
remailers?"
- Certainly digitally signed IDs are used (Pr0duct Cypher,
for example), but not nicknames preserved in fields in
the remailing and mail-to-Usenet gateways.
- This could perhaps be added to the remailers, as an extra
field. (I've heard the mail fields are more tolerant of
added stuff than the Netnews fields are, making mail-to-
News gateways lose the extra fields.)
+ Some remailer sites support them
- "If you want an alias assigned at vox.hacktic.nl, one -
only- needs to send some empty mail to
and the adress the mail was send
from will be inculded in the data-base.....Since
vox.hacktic.nl is on a UUCP node the reply can take
some time, usually something like 8 to 12 hours."[Alex
de Joode, , 1994-08-29]
+ "What do remailers do with the various portions of
messages? Do they send stuff included after an encrypted
block? Should they? What about headers?"
+ There are clearly lots of approaches that may be taken:
- Send everything as is, leaving it up to the sender to
ensure that nothing incriminating is left
- Make certain choices
- I favor sending everything, unless specifically told not
to, as this makes fewer assumptions about the intended
form of the message and thus allows more flexibility in
designing new functions.
+ For example, this is what Matthew Ghio had to to say
about his remailer:
- "Everything after the encrypted message gets passed
along in the clear. If you don't want this, you can
remove it using the cutmarks feature with my remailer.
(Also, remail@extropia.wimsey.com doesn't append the
text after the encrypted message.) The reason for this
is that it allows anonymous replies. I can create a
pgp message for a remailer which will be delivered to
myself. I send you the PGP message, you append some
text to it, and send it to the remailer. The remailer
decrypts it and remails it to me, and I get your
message. [M.G., alt.privacy.anon-server, 1994-07-03]
8.6.7. Remailer Sites
- There is no central administrator of sites, of course, so a
variety of tools are the best ways to develop one's own
list of sites. (Many of us, I suspect, simply settle on a
dozen or so of our favorites. This will change as hundreds
of remailers appear; of course, various scripting programs
will be used to generate the trajectories, handled the
nested encryption, etc.)
- The newsgroups alt.privacy.anon-server, alt.security.pgp,
etc. often report on the latest sites, tools, etc.
+ Software for Remailers
+ Software to run a remailer site can be found at:
- soda.csua.berkeley.edu in /pub/cypherpunks/remailer/
- chaos.bsu.edu in /pub/cypherpunks/remailer/
+ Instructions for Using Remailers and Keyservers
+ on how to use keyservers
- "If you have access to the World Wide Web, see this
URL: http://draco.centerline.com:8080/~franl/pgp/pgp-
keyservers.html" [Fran Litterio, alt.security.pgp, 1994-
09-02]
+ Identifying Remailer Sites
+ finger remailer-list@chaos.bsu.edu
- returns a list of active remailers
- for more complete information, keys, and instructions,
finger remailer.help.all@chaos.bsu.edu
- gopher://chaos.bsu.edu/
+ Raph Levien has an impressive utility which pings the
remailers and reports uptime:
- finger remailer-list@kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu
- or use the Web at
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html
- Raph Levien also has a remailer chaining script at
ftp://kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/raph/premail-0.20.tar.gz
+ Remailer pinging
- "I have written and installed a remailer pinging script
which
collects detailed information about remailer features and
reliability.
To use it, just finger remailer-
list@kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu
There is also a Web version of the same information, at:
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html"
[Raph Levien, 1994-08-29]
+ Sites which are down??
- tamsun.tamu.edu and tamaix.tamu.edu
8.6.8. "How do I set up a remailer at my site?"
- This is not something for the casual user, but is certainly
possible.
- "Would someone be able to help me install the remailer
scripts from the archives? I have no Unix experience and
have *no* idea where to begin. I don't even know if root
access is needed for these. Any help would be
appreciated." [Robert Luscombe, 93-04-28]
- Sameer Parekh, Matthew Ghio, Raph Levien have all written
instructions....
8.6.9. "How are most Cypherpunks remailers written, and with what
tools?"
- as scripts which manipulate the mail files, replacing
headers, etc.
- Perl, C, TCL
- "The cypherpunks remailers have been written in Perl, which
facilitates experimenting and testing of new interfaces.
The idea might be to migrate them to C eventually for
efficiency, but during this experimental phase we may want
to try out new ideas, and it's easier to modify a Perl
script than a C program." [Hal Finney, 93-01-09]
- "I do appreciate the cypherpunks stuff, but perl is still
not a very
widely used standard tool, and not everyone of us want to
learn the
ins and outs of yet another language... So I do applaud
the C
version..." [Johan Helsingius, "Julf," 93-01-09]
8.6.10. Dealing with Remailer Abuse
+ The Hot Potato
- a remailer who is being used very heavily, or suspects
abuse, may choose to distribute his load to other
remailers. Generally, he can instead of remailing to the
next site, add sites of his own choosing. Thus, he can
both reduce the spotlight on him and also increase cover
traffic by scattering some percentage of his traffic to
other sites (it never reduces his traffic, just lessens
the focus on him).
+ Flooding attacks
- denial of service attacks
- like blowing whistles at sports events, to confuse the
action
- DC-Nets, disruption (disruptionf of DC-Nets by flooding
is a very similar problem to disruption of remailers by
mail bombs)
+ "How can remailers deal with abuse?"
- Several remailer operators have shut down their
remailers, either because they got tired of dealing with
the problems, or because others ordered them to.
- Source level blocking
- Paid messages: at least this makes the abusers _pay_ and
stops certain kinds of spamming/bombing attacks.
- Disrupters are dealt with in anonymous ways in Chaum's DC-
Net schemes; there may be a way to use this here.
+ Karl Kleinpaste was a pioneer (circa 1991-2) of remailers.
He has become disenchanted:
- "There are 3 sites out there which have my software:
anon.penet.fi, tygra, and uiuc.edu. I have philosophical
disagreement with the "universal reach" policy of
anon.penet.fi (whose code is now a long-detached strain
from the original software I gave Julf -- indeed, by now
it may be a complete rewrite, I simply don't know);
....Very bluntly, having tried to run anon servers twice,
and having had both go down due to actual legal
difficulties, I don't trust people with them any more."
[Karl_Kleinpaste@cs.cmu.edu, alt.privacy.anon-server,
1994-08-29]
- see discussions in alt.privacy.anon-server for more on
his legal problems with remailers, and why he shut his
down
8.6.11. Generations of Remailers
+ First Generation Remailer Characteristics--Now (since 1992)
- Perl scripts, simple processing of headers, crypto
+ Second Generation Remailer Characteristics--Maybe 1994
- digital postage of some form (perhaps simple coupons or
"stamps")
- more flexible handling of exceptions
- mail objects can tell remailer what settings to use
(delays, latency, etc.(
+ Third Generation Remailer Characteristics--1995-7?
- protocol negotiation
+ Chaum-like "mix" characteristics
- tamper-resistant modules (remailer software runs in a
sealed environment, not visible to operator)
+ Fourth Generation Remailer Characteristics--1996-9?
- Who knows?
- Agent-based (Telescript?)
- DC-Net-based
8.6.12. Remailer identity escrow
+ could have some uses...
- what incentives would anyone have?
- recipients could source-block any remailer that did not
have some means of coping with serious abuse...a perfect
free market solution
- could also be mandated
8.6.13. Remailer Features
+ There are dozens of proposed variations, tricks, and
methods which may or may not add to overall remailer
security (entropy, confusion). These are often discussed on
the list, one at a time. Some of them are:
+ Using one's self as a remailer node. Route traffic back
through one's own system.
- even if all other systems are compromised...
- Random delays, over and above what is needed to meet
reordering requirements
- MIRVing, sending a packet out in multiple pieces
- Encryption is of course a primary feature.
+ Digital postage.
- Not so much a feature as an incentive/inducement to get
more remailers and support them better.
+ "What are features of a remailer network?"
- A vast number of features have been considered; some are
derivative of other, more basic features (e.g., "random
delays" is not a basic feature, but is one proposed way
of achieving "reordering," which is what is really
needed. And "reordering" is just the way to achieve
"decorrelation" of incoming and outgoing messages).
+ The "Ideal Mix" is worth considering, just as the "ideal
op amp" is studied by engineers, regardless of whether
one can ever be built.
- a black box that decorrelates incoming and outgoing
packets to some level of diffusion
- tamper-proof, in that outside world cannot see the
internal process of decorrelation (Chaum envisioned
tamper-resistant or tamper-responding circuits doing
the decorrelation)
+ Features of Real-World Mixes:
+ Decorrelation of incoming and outgoing messages. This
is the most basic feature of any mix or remailer:
obscuring the relationship between any message entering
the mix and any message leaving the mix. How this is
achieve is what most of the features here are all
about.
- "Diffusion" is achieved by batching or delaying
(danger: low-volume traffic defeats simple, fixed
delays)
- For example, in some time period, 20 messages enter a
node. Then 20 or so (could be less, could be
more...there is no reason not to add messages, or
throw away some) messages leave.
+ Encryption should be supported, else the decorrelation
is easily defeated by simple inspection of packets.
- public key encryption, clearly, is preferred (else
the keys are available outside)
- forward encryption, using D-H approaches, is a useful
idea to explore, with keys discarded after
transmission....thus making subpoenas problematic
(this has been used with secure phones, for example).
+ Quanitzed packet sizes. Obviously the size of a packet
(e.g., 3137 bytes) is a strong cue as to message
identity. Quantizing to a fixed size destroys this cue.
+ But since some messages may be small, and some large,
a practical compromise is perhaps to quantize to one
of several standards:
- small messages, e.g., 5K
- medium messages, e.g., 20K
- large messages....handled somehow (perhaps split
up, etc.)
- More analysis is needed.
+ Reputation and Service
- How long in business?
- Logging policy? Are messages logged?
- the expectation of operating as stated
+ The Basic Goals of Remailer Use
+ decorrelation of ingoing and outgoing messages
- indistinguishability
+ "remailed messages have no hair" (apologies to the
black hole fans out there)
- no distinguishing charateristics that can be used to
make correlations
- no "memory" of previous appearance
+ this means message size padding to quantized sizes,
typically
- how many distinct sizes depends on a lot fo things,
like traffic, the sizes of other messages, etc.
+ Encryption, of course
- PGP
- otherwise, messages are trivially distinguishable
+ Quantization or Padding: Messages
- padded to standard sizes, or dithered in size to obscure
oringinal size. For example, 2K for typical short
messages, 5K for typical Usenet articles, and 20K for
long articles. (Messages much longer are hard to hide in
a sea of much shorter messages, but other possibilities
exist: delaying the long messages until N other long
messages have been accumulated, splitting the messages
into smaller chunks, etc.)
+ "What are the quanta for remailers? That is, what are the
preferred packet sizes for remailed messages?"
- In the short term, now, the remailed packet sizes are
pretty much what they started out to be, e.g, 3-6KB or
so. Some remailers can pad to quantized levels, e.g.,
to 5K or 10K or more. The levels have not been settled
on.
- In the long term, I suspect much smaller packets will
be selected. Perhaps at the granularity of ATM packets.
"ATM Remailers" are likely to be coming. (This changes
the nature of traffic analyis a bit, as the _number_ of
remailed packets increases.
- A dissenting argument: ATM networks don't give sender
the control over packets...
- Whatever, I think packets will get smaller, not larger.
Interesting issues.
- "Based on Hal's numbers, I would suggest a reasonable
quantization for message sizes be a short set of
geometrically increasing values, namely, 1K, 4K, 16K,
64K. In retrospect, this seems like the obvious
quantization, and not arithmetic progressions." [Eric
Hughes, 1994-08-29]
- (Eudora chokes at 32K, and so splits messages at about
25K, to leave room for comments without further
splitting. Such practical considerations may be important
to consider.)
+ Return Mail
- A complicated issue. May have no simple solution.
+ Approaches:
- Post encrypted message to a pool. Sender (who provided
the key to use) is able to retrieve anonymously by the
nature of pools and/or public posting.
+ Return envelopes, using some kind of procedure to
ensure anonymity. Since software is by nature never
secure (can always be taken apart), the issues are
complicated. The security may be gotten by arranging
with the remailers in the return path to do certain
things to certain messages.
- sender sends instructions to remailers on how to
treat messages of certain types
- the recipient who is replying cannot deduce the
identity, because he has no access to the
instructions the remailers have.
- Think of this as Alice sending to Bob sending to
Charles....sending to Zeke. Zeke sends a reply back
to Yancy, who has instructions to send this back to
Xavier, and so on back up the chain. Only if Bob,
Charles, ..., Yancy collude, can the mapping in the
reverse direction be deduced.
- Are these schemes complicated? Yes. But so are lot of
other protocols, such as getting fonts from a screen
to a laser printer
+ Reordering of Messages is Crucial
+ latency or fanout in remailers
+ much more important than "delay"
- do some calculations!
+ the canard about "latency" or delay keeps coming up
- a "delay" of X is neither necessary nor sufficient
to achieve reordering (think about it)
- essential for removing time correlation information,
for removing a "distinguishing mark" ("ideal remailed
messages have no hair")
+ The importance of pay as you go, digital postage
+ standard market issues
- markets are how scarece resources are allocated
- reduces spamming, overloading, bombing
- congestion pricing
- incentives for improvement
+ feedback mechanisms
- in the same way the restaurants see impacts quickly
- applies to other crypto uses besides remailers
+ Miscellaneous
- by having one's own nodes, further ensures security
(true, the conspiring of all other nodes can cause
traceability, but such a conspiracy is costly and would
be revealed)
+ the "public posting" idea is very attractive: at no point
does the last node know who the next node will be...all
he knows is a public key for that node
+ so how does the next node in line get the message,
short of reading all messages?
- first, security is not much compromised by sorting
the public postings by some kind of order set by the
header (e.g., "Fred" is shorthand for some long P-K,
and hence the recipient knows to look in the
Fs...obviously he reads more than just the Fs)
+ outgoing messages can be "broadcast" (sent to many nodes,
either by a literal broadcast or public posting, or by
randomly picking many nodes)
- this "blackboard" system means no point to point
communication is needed
+ Timed-release strategies
+ encrypt and then release the key later
- "innocuously" (how?)
- through a remailing service
- DC-Net
- via an escrow service or a lawyer (but can the lawyer
get into hot water for releasing the key to
controversial data?)
- with a series of such releases, the key can be
"diffused"
- some companies may specialize in timed-release, such
as by offering a P-K with the private key to be
released some time later
- in an ecology of cryptoid entities, this will increase
the degrees of freedom
+ this reduces the legal liability of
retransmitters...they can accurately claim that they
were only passing data, that there was no way they
could know the content of the packets
- of course they can already claim this, due to the
encrypted nature
+ One-Shot Remailers
- "You can get an anonymous address from
mg5n+getid@andrew.cmu.edu. Each time you request an
anon address, you get a different one. You can get as
many as you like. The addresses don't expire, however,
so maybe it's not the ideal 'one-shot' system, but it
allows replies without connecting you to your 'real
name/address' or to any of your other posts/nyms." [
Matthew Ghio, 1994-04-07]
8.6.14. Things Needed in Remailers
+ return receipts
- Rick Busdiecker notes that "The idea of a Return-Receipt-
To: field has been around for a while, but the semantics
have never been pinned down. Some mailer daemons
generate replies meaning that the bits were delivered."
[R.B., 1994-08-08]
+ special handling instructions
- agents, daemons
- negotiated procedures
+ digital postage
- of paramount importance!
- solves many problems, and incentivizes remailers
+ padding
+ padding to fixed sizes
- padding to fixed powers of 2 would increase the average
message size by about a third
- lots of remailers
- multiple jursidictions
- robustness and consistency
+ running in secure hardware
- no logs
- no monitoring by operator
- wipe of all temp files
- instantiated quickly, fluidly
- better randomization of remailers
8.6.15. Miscellaneous Aspects of Remailers
+ "How many remailer nodes are actually needed?"
- We strive to get as many as possible, to distribute the
process to many jurisdictions and with many opeators.
- Curiously, as much theoretical diffusivity can occur with
a single remailer (taking in a hundred messages and
sending out a hundred, for example) as with many
remailers. Our intuition is, I think, that many remailers
offer better diffusivity and better hiding. Why this is
so (if it is) needs more careful thinking than I've seen
done so far.
- At a meta-level, we think multiple remailers lessens the
chance of them being compromised (this, however, is not
directly related to the diffusivity of a remailer network-
-important, but not directly related).
- (By the way, a kind of sneaky idea is to try to always
declare one's self to be a remailer. If messages were
somehow traced back to one's own machine, one could
claim: 'Yes, I'm a remailer." In principle, one could be
the only remailer in the universe and still have high
enough diffusion and confusion. In practice, being the
only remailer would be pretty dangerous.)
+ Diffusion and confusion in remailer networks
+ Consider a single node, with a message entering, and
two messages leaving; this is essentially the smallest
"remailer op"
- From a proof point of view, either outgoing message
could be the one
- and yet neither one can be proved to be
- Now imagine those two messages being sent through 10
remailers...no additional confusion is added...why?
- So, with 10 messages gong into a chain of 10 remailers,
if 10 leave...
- The practical effect of N remailers is to ensure that
compromise of some fraction of them doesn't destroy
overall security
+ "What do remailers do with misaddressed mail?"
- Depends on the site. Some operators send notes back
(which itself causes concern), some just discard
defective mail. This is a fluid area. At least one
remailer (wimsey) can post error messages to a message
pool--this idea can be generalized to provide "delivery
receipts" and other feedback.
- Ideal mixes, a la Chaum, would presumably discard
improperly-formed mail, although agents might exist to
prescreen mail (not mandatory agents, of course, but
voluntarily-selected agents)
- As in so many areas, legislation is not needed, just
announcement of policies, choice by customers, and the
reputation of the remailer.
- A good reason to have robust generation of mail on one's
own machine, so as to minimize such problems.
+ "Can the NSA monitor remailers? Have they?"
+ Certainly they _can_ in various ways, either by directly
monitoring Net traffic or indirectly. Whether they _do_
is unknown.
- There have been several rumors or forgeries claiming
that NSA is routinely linking anonymous IDs to real IDs
at the penet remailer.
+ Cypherpunks remailers are, if used properly, more
secure in key ways:
- many of them
- not used for persistent, assigned IDs
- support for encryption: incoming and outgoing
messages look completely unlike
- batching, padding, etc. supported
- And properly run remailers will obscure/diffuse the
connection between incoming and outgoing messages--the
main point of a remailer!
+ The use of message pools to report remailer errors
- A good example of how message pools can be used to
anonymously report things.
- "The wimsey remailer has an ingenious method of returning
error messages anonymously. Specify a subject in the
message sent to wimsey that will be meaningful to you,
but won't identify you (like a set of random letters).
This subject does not appear in the remailed message.
Then subscribe to the mailing list
errors-request@extropia.wimsey.com
by sending a message with Subject: subscribe. You will
receive a msg
for ALL errors detected in incoming messages and ALL
bounced messages." [anonymous, 93-08-23]
- This is of course like reading a classified ad with some
cryptic message meaningful to you alone. And more
importantly, untraceable to you.
+ there may be role for different types of remailers
- those that support encryption, those that don't
+ as many in non-U.S. countries as possible
- especially for the *last* hop, to avoid subpoena issues
- first-class remailers which remail to *any* address
+ remailers which only remail to *other remailers*
- useful for the timid, for those with limited support,
etc.
-
+ "Should mail faking be used as part of the remailer
strategy?"
- "1. If you fake mail by talking SMTP directly, the IP
address or domain name of the site making the outgoing
connection will appear in a Received field in the header
somewhere."
"2. Fake mail by devious means is generally frowned upon.
There's no need to take a back-door approach here--it's
bad politically, as in Internet politics." [Eric Hughes,
94-01-31]
- And if mail can really be consistently and robustly
faked, there would be less need for remailers, right?
(Actually, still a need, as traffic analysis would likely
break any "Port 25" faking scheme.)
- Furthermore, such a strategy would not likely to be
robust over time, as it relies on exploiting transitory
flaws and vendor specifics. A bad idea all around.
+ Difficulties in getting anonymous remailer networks widely
deployed
- "The tricky part is finding a way to preserve anonymity
where the majority of sites on the Internet continue to
log traffic carefully, refuse to install new software
(especially anon-positive software), and are
administrated by people with simplistic and outdated
ideas about identity and punishment. " [Greg Broiles,
1994-08-08]
+ Remailer challenge: insulating the last leg on a chain from
prosecution
+ Strategy 1: Get them declared to be common carriers, like
the phone company or a mail delivery service
+ e.g., we don't prosecute an actual package
deliveryperson, or even the company they work for, for
delivery of an illegal package
- contents assumed to be unknown to the carrier
- (I've heard claims that only carriers who make other
agreements to cooperate with law enforcement can be
treated as common carriers.)
+ Strategy 2: Message pools
+ ftp sites
- with plans for users to "subscribe to" all new
messages (thus, monitoring agencies cannot know
which, if any, messages are being sought)
- this gets around the complaint about too much volume
on the Usenet (text messages are a tiny fraction of
other traffic, especially images, so the complaint is
only one of potentiality)
+ Strategy 3: Offshore remailers as last leg
- probably set by sender, who presumably knows the
destination
- A large number of "secondary remailers" who agree to
remail a limited number...
+ "Are we just playing around with remailers and such?"
- It pains me to say this, but, yes, we are just basically
playing around here!
- Remailer traffic is so low, padding is so haphazard, that
making correlations between inputs and outputs is not
cryptographically hard to do. (It might _seem_ hard, with
paper and pencil sorts of calculations, but it'll be
child's play for the Crays at the Fort.)
- Even if this is not so for any particular message,
maintaining a persistent ID--such as Pr0duct Cypher does,
with digital sigs--without eventually providing enough
clues will be almost impossible. At this time.
- Things will get better. Better and more detailed
"cryptanalysis of remailer chains" is sorely needed.
Until then, we are indeed just playing. (Play can be
useful, though.)
+ The "don't give em any hints" principle (for remailers)
- avoid giving any information
- dont't say which nodes are sources and which are sinks;
let attackers assume everyone is a remailer, a source
- don't say how long a password is
- don't say how many rounds are in a tit-for-tat tournament
8.7. Anonymous Posting to Usenet
8.7.1. Julf's penet system has historically been the main way to
post anonymously to Usenet (used by no less a luminary than
L. Detweiler, in his "an12070/S. Boxx" personna). This has
particulary been the case with postings to "support" groups,
or emotional distress groups. For example,
alt.sexual.abuse.recovery.
8.7.2. Cryptographically secure remailes are now being used
increasingly (and scaling laws and multiple jurisdictions
suggest even more will be used in the future).
8.7.3. finger remailer.help.all@chaos.bsu.edu gives these results
[as of 1994-09-07--get a current result before using!]
- "Anonymous postings to usenet can be made by sending
anonymous mail to one of the following mail-to-usenet
gateways:
group.name@demon.co.uk
group.name@news.demon.co.uk
group.name@bull.com
group.name@cass.ma02.bull.com
group.name@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca
group.name@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
group.name@comlab.ox.ac.uk
group.name@nic.funet.fi
group.name@cs.dal.ca
group.name@ug.cs.dal.ca
group.name@paris.ics.uci.edu (removes headers)
group.name.usenet@decwrl.dec.com (Preserves all headers)"
8.8. Anonymous Message Pools, Newsgroups, etc.
8.8.1. "Why do some people use message pools?"
- Provides untracable communication
- messages
- secrets
- transactions
+ Pr0duct Cypher is a good example of someone who
communicates primarily via anonymous pools (for messages to
him). Someone recently asked about this, with this comment:
- "Pr0duct Cypher chooses to not link his or her "real
life" identity with the 'nym used to sign the software he
or she wrote (PGP Tools, Magic Money, ?). This is quite
an understandable sentiment, given that bad apples in the
NSA are willing to go far beyond legal hassling, and make
death threats against folks with high public visibility
(see the threads about an NSA agent threatening to run
Jim Bidzos of RSA over in his parking lot)." [Richard
Johnson, alt.security.pgp, 1994-07-02]
8.8.2. alt.anonymous.messages is one such pool group
- though it's mainly used for test messages, discussions of
anonymity (though there are better groups), etc.
8.8.3. "Could there be truly anonymous newsgroups?"
- One idea: newgroup a moderated group in which only messages
sans headers and other identifiers would be accepted. The
"moderator"--which could be a program--would only post
messages after this was ensured. (Might be an interesting
experiment.)
+ alt.anonymous.messages was newgrouped by Rick Busdiecker,
1994-08.
- Early uses were, predictably, by people who stumbled
across the group and imputed to it whatever they wished.
8.9. Legal Issues with Remailers
8.9.1. What's the legal status of remailers?
- There are no laws against it at this time.
- No laws saying people have to put return addresses on
messages, on phone calls (pay phones are still legal), etc.
- And the laws pertaining to not having to produce identity
(the "flier" case, where leaflet distributors did not have
to produce ID) would seem to apply to this form of
communication.
+ However, remailers may come under fire:
+ Sysops, MIT case
- potentially serious for remailers if the case is
decided such that the sysop's creation of group that
was conducive to criminal pirating was itself a
crime...that could make all involved in remailers
culpable
8.9.2. "Can remailer logs be subpoenaed?"
- Count on it happening, perhaps very soon. The FBI has been
subpoenaing e-mail archives for a Netcom customer (Lewis De
Payne), probably because they think the e-mail will lead
them to the location of uber-hacker Kevin Mitnick. Had the
parties used remailers, I'm fairly sure we'd be seeing
similar subpoenas for the remailer logs.
- There's no exemption for remailers that I know of!
+ The solutions are obvious, though:
- use many remailers, to make subpoenaing back through the
chain very laborious, very expensive, and likely to fail
(if even one party won't cooperate, or is outside the
court's jurisdiction, etc.)
- offshore, multi-jurisdictional remailers (seleted by the
user)
- no remailer logs kept...destroy them (no law currently
says anybody has to keep e-mail records! This may
change....)
- "forward secrecy," a la Diffie-Hellman forward secrecy
8.9.3. How will remailers be harassed, attacked, and challenged?
8.9.4. "Can pressure be put on remailer operators to reveal traffic
logs and thereby allow tracing of messages?"
+ For human-operated systems which have logs, sure. This is
why we want several things in remailers:
* no logs of messages
* many remailers
* multiple legal jurisdictions, e.g., offshore remailers
(the more the better)
* hardware implementations which execute instructions
flawlessly (Chaum's digital mix)
8.9.5. Calls for limits on anonymity
+ Kids and the net will cause many to call for limits on
nets, on anonymity, etc.
- "But there's a dark side to this exciting phenomenon, one
that's too rarely understood by computer novices.
Because they
offer instant access to others, and considerable
anonymity to
participants, the services make it possible for people -
especially computer-literate kids - to find themselves in
unpleasant, sexually explicit social situations.... And
I've gradually
come to adopt the view, which will be controversial among
many online
users, that the use of nicknames and other forms of
anonymity
must be eliminated or severly curbed to force people
online into
at least as much accountability for their words and
actions as
exists in real social encounters." [Walter S. Mossberg,
Wall Street Journal, 6/30/94, provided by Brad Dolan]
- Eli Brandt came up with a good response to this: "The
sound-bite response to this: do you want your child's
name, home address, and phone number available to all
those lurking pedophiles worldwide? Responsible parents
encourage their children to use remailers."
- Supreme Court said that identity of handbill distributors
need not be disclosed, and pseudonyms in general has a long
and noble tradition
- BBS operators have First Amendment protections (e.g..
registration requirements would be tossed out, exactly as
if registration of newspapers were to be attempted)
8.9.6. Remailers and Choice of Jurisdictions
- The intended target of a remailed message, and the subject
material, may well influence the set of remailers used,
especially for the very important "last remailer' (Note: it
should never be necessary to tell remailers if they are
first, last, or others, but the last remailer may in fact
be able to tell he's the last...if the message is in
plaintext to the recipient, with no additional remailer
commands embedded, for example.)
- A message involving child pornography might have a remailer
site located in a state like Denmark, where child porn laws
are less restrictive. And a message critical of Islam might
not be best sent through a final remailer in Teheran. Eric
Hughes has dubbed this "regulatory arbitrage," and to
various extents it is already common practice.
- Of course, the sender picks the remailer chain, so these
common sense notions may not be followed. Nothing is
perfect, and customs will evolve. I can imagine schemes
developing for choosing customers--a remailer might not
accept as a customer certain abusers, based on digital
pseudonyms < hairy).
8.9.7. Possible legal steps to limit the use of remailers and
anonymous systems
- hold the remailer liable for content, i.e., no common
carrier status
- insert provisions into the various "anti-hacking" laws to
criminalize anonymous posts
8.9.8. Crypto and remailers can be used to protect groups from "deep
pockets" lawsuits
- products (esp. software) can be sold "as is," or with
contracts backed up by escrow services (code kept in an
escrow repository, or money kept there to back up
committments)
+ jurisdictions, legal and tax, cannot do "reach backs" which
expose the groups to more than they agreed to
- as is so often the case with corporations in the real
world, which are taxed and fined for various purposes
(asbestos, etc.)
- (For those who panic at the thought of this, the remedy for
the cautious will be to arrange contracts with the right
entities...probably paying more for less product.)
8.9.9. Could anonymous remailers be used to entrap people, or to
gather information for investigations?
- First, there are so few current remailers that this is
unlikely. Julf seems a non-narc type, and he is located in
Finland. The Cypherpunks remailers are mostly run by folks
like us, for now.
- However, such stings and set-ups have been used in the past
by narcs and "red squads." Expect the worse from Mr.
Policeman. Now that evil hackers are identified as hazards,
expect moves in this direction. "Cryps" are obviously
"crack" dealers.
- But use of encryption, which CP remailers support (Julf's
does not), makes this essentially moot.
8.10. Cryptanalysis of Remailer Networks
8.10.1. The Need for More Detailed Analysis of Mixes and Remailers
+ "Have remailer systems been adequately cryptanalyzed?"
- Not in my opinion, no. Few calculations have been done,
just mostly some estimates about how much "confusion" has
been created by the remailer nodes.
- But thinking that a lot of complication and messiness
makes a strong crypto system is a basic mistake...sort of
like thinking an Enigma rotor machine makes a good cipher
system, by today's standards, just because millions of
combinations of pathways through the rotor system are
possible. Not so.
+ Deducing Patterns in Traffic and Deducing Nyms
- The main lesson of mathematical cryptology has been that
seemingly random things can actually be shown to have
structure. This is what cryptanalysis is all about.
- The same situation applies to "seemingly random" message
traffic, in digital mixes, telephone networks, etc.
"Cryptanalysis of remailers" is of course possible,
depending on the underlying model. (Actually, it's always
possible, it just may not yield anything, as with
cryptanalysis of ciphers.)
+ on the time correlation in remailer cryptanalysis
- imagine Alice and Bob communicating through
remailers...an observer, unable to follow specific
messages through the remailers, could still notice
pairwise correlations between messages sent and
received by these two
+ like time correlations between events, even if the
intervening path or events are jumbled
- e.g., if within a few hours of every submarine's
departure from Holy Loch a call is placed to Moscow,
one may make draw certain conclusions about who is a
Russian spy, regardless of not knowing the
intermediate paths
- or, closer to home, correlating withdrawals from one
bank to deposits in another, even if the intervening
transfers are jumbled
+ just because it seems "random" does not mean it is
- Scott Collins speculates that a "dynamic Markov
compressor" could discern or uncover the non-
randomness in remailer uses
- Cryptanalysis of remailers has been woefully lacking. A
huge fraction of posts about remailer improvements make
hand-waving arguments about the need for more traffic,
longer delays, etc. (I'm not pointing fingers, as I make
the same informal, qualitative comments, too. What is
needed is a rigorous analysis of remailer security.)
- We really don't have any good estimates of overall security
as a function of number of messages circulating, the
latency ( number of stored messages before resending), the
number of remailer hops, etc. This is not cryptographically
"exciting" work, but it's still needed. There has not been
much focus in the academic community on digital mixes or
remailers, probably because David Chaum's 1981 paper on
"Untraceable E-Mail" covered most of the theoretically
interesting material. That, and the lack of commercial
products or wide usage.
+ Time correlations may reveal patterns that individual
messages lack. That is, repeated communicatin between Alice
and Bob, even if done through remailers and even if time
delays/dwell times are built-in, may reveal nonrandom
correlations in sent/received messages.
- Scott Collins speculates that a dynamic Markov compressor
applied to the traffic would have reveal such
correlations. (The application of such tests to digital
cash and other such systems would be useful to look at.)
- Another often overlooked weakness is that many people
send test messages to themselves, a point noted by Phil
Karn: "Another way that people often let themselves be
caught is that they inevitably send a test message to
themselves right before the forged message in question.
This shows up clearly in the sending system's sendmail
logs. It's a point to consider with remailer chains too,
if you don't trust the last machine on the chain." [P.K.,
1994-09-06]
+ What's needed:
- aggreement on some terminology (this doesn't require
consensus, just a clearly written paper to de facto
establish the terminology)
- a formula relating degree of untraceability to the major
factors that go into remailers: packet size and
quantization, latency (# of messages), remailer policies,
timing, etc.
- Also, analysis of how deliberate probes or attacks might
be mounted to deduce remailer patterns (e.g., Fred always
remails to Josh and Suzy and rarely to Zeke).
- I think this combinatorial analysis would be a nice little
monograph for someone to write.
8.10.2. A much-needed thing. Hal Finney has posted some calculations
(circa 1994-08-08), but more work is sorely needed.
8.10.3. In particular, we should be skeptical of hand-waving analyses
of the "it sure looks complicated to follow the traffic"
sort. People think that by adding "messy" tricks, such as
MIRVing messages, that security is increased. Maybe it is,
maybe it isn't. But it needs formal analysis before claims
can be confidantly believed.
8.10.4. Remailers and entropy
- What's the measure of "mixing" that goes on in a mix, or
remailer?
- Hand=waving about entropy and reordering may not be too
useful.
+ Going back to Shannon's concept of entropy as measuring the
degree of uncertainty...
+ trying to "guess" or "predict' where a message leaving
one node will exit the system
- not having clear entrance and exit points adds to the
difficulty, somewhat analogously to having a password
of unknown length (an attacker can't just try all 10-
character passwords, as he has no idea of the length)
- the advantages of every node being a remailer, of
having no clearly identified sources and sinks
+ This predictability may depend on a _series_ of messages
sent between Alice and Bob...how?
- it seems there may be links to Persi Diaconis' work on
"perfect shuffles" (a problem which seemed easy, but
which eluded solving until recently...should give us
comfort that our inability to tackle the real meat of
this issue is not too surprising
8.10.5. Scott Collins believes that remailer networks can be
cryptanalyzed roughly the same way as pseudorandom number
generators are analyzed, e.g., with dynamic Markov
compressors (DNCs). (I'm more skeptical: if each remailer is
using an information-theoretically secure RNG to reorder the
messages, and if all messages are the same size and (of
course) are encypted with information-theoretically secure
(OTP) ciphers, then it seems to me that the remailing would
itself be information-theoretically secure.)
8.11. Dining Cryptographers
8.11.1. This is effectively the "ideal digital mix," updated from
Chaum's original hardware mix form to a purely software-based
form.
8.11.2. David Chaum's 1988 paper in Journal of Crypology (Vol 1, No
1) outlines a way for completely untraceable communication
using only software (no tamper-resistant modules needed)
- participants in a ring (hence "dining cryptographers")
- Chaum imagines that 3 cryptographers are having dinner and
are informed by their waiter that their dinner has already
been paid for, perhaps by the NSA, or perhaps by one of
themselves...they wish to determine which of these is true,
without revealing which of them paid!
- everyone flips a coin (H or T) and shows it to his neighbor
on the left
+ everyone reports whether he sees "same" or "different"
- note that with 2 participants, they both already know
the other's coin (both are to the left!)
- however, someone wishing to send a message, such as Chaum's
example of "I paid for dinner," instead says the opposite
of what he sees
+ some analysis of this (analyze it from the point of view of
one of the cryptographers) shows that the 3 cryptographers
will know that one of them paid (if this protocol is
executed faithfully), but that the identity can't be
"localized"
- a diagram is needed...
+ this can be generalized...
+ longer messages
- use multiple rounds of the protocol
+ faster than coin-flipping
- each participant and his left partner share a list of
"pre-flipped" coins, such as truly random bits
(radioactive decay, noise, etc.) stored on a CD-ROM or
whatever
- they can thus "flip coins" as fast as they can read the
disk
+ simultaneous messages (collision)
- use back-off and retry protocols (like Ethernet uses)
+ collusion of participants
- an interesting issue...remember that participants are
not restricted to the simple ring topology
- various subgraphs can be formed
- a participant who fears collusion can pick a subgraph
that includes those he doubts will collude (a tricky
issue)
+ anonymity of receiver
- can use P-K to encrypt message to some P-K and then
"broadcast" it and force every participant to try to
decrypt it (only the anonymous recipient will actually
succeed)
- Chaum's complete 1988 "Journal of Cryptology" article is
available at the Cypherpunks archive site,
ftp.soda.csua.edu, in /pub/cypherpunks
8.11.3. What "DC-Net" Means
- a system (graph, subgraphs, etc.) of communicating
participants, who need not be known to each other, can
communicate information such that neither the sender nor
the recipient is known
+ unconditional sender untraceability
- the anonymity of the broadcaster can be information-
theoretically secure, i.e., truly impossible to break and
requiring no assumptions about public key systems, the
difficulty of factoring, etc.
+ receiver untraceability depends on public-key protocols, so
traceability is computationally-dependent
- but this is believed to be secure, of course
+ bandwidth can be increased by several means
- shared keys
- block transmission by accumulating messages
- hiearchies of messages, subgraphs, etc.
8.12. Future Remailers
8.12.1. "What are the needed features for the Next Generation
Remailer?"
+ Some goals
- generally, closer to the goals outlined in Chaum's 1981
paper on "Untraceable E-Mail"
- Anonymity
- Digital Postage, pay as you go, ,market pricing
- Traffic Analysis foiled
+ Bulletproof Sites:
- Having offshore (out of the U.S.) sites is nice, but
having sites resistant to pressures from universities and
corporate site administrators is of even greater
practical consequence. The commercial providers, like
Netcom, Portal, and Panix, cannot be counted on to stand
and fight should pressures mount (this is just my guess,
not an aspersion against their backbones, whether organic
or Internet).
- Locating remailers in many non-U.S. countries is a Good
Idea. As with money-laundering, lots of countries means
lots of jurisdictions, and the near impossibility of
control by one country.
+ Digital Postage, or Pay-as-you-Go Services:
- Some fee for the service. Just like phone service, modem
time, real postage, etc. (But unlike highway driving,
whose usage is largely subsidized.)
- This will reduce spamming, will incentivize remailer
services to better maintain their systems, and will
- Rates would be set by market process, in the usual way.
"What the traffic will bear." Discounts, favored
customers, rebates, coupons, etc. Those that don't wish
to charge, don't have to (they'll have to deal with the
problems).
+ Generations
- 1st Gen--Today's Remailer:
- 2nd Gen--Near Future (c. 1995)
- 3rd Gen-
- 4th Gen--
8.12.2. Remailing as a side effect of mail filtering
- Dean Tribble has proposed...
- "It sounds like the plan is to provide a convenient mail
filtering tool which provides remailer capability as a SIDE
EFFECT! What a great way to spread remailers!" [Hal Finney,
93-01-03]
8.12.3. "Are there any remailers which provide you with an anonymous
account to which other people may send messages, which are
then forwarded to you in a PGP-encrypted form?" [Mikolaj
Habryn, 94-04]
- "Yes, but it's not running for real yet. Give me a few
months until I get the computer + netlink for it. (It's
running for testing though, so if you want to test it, mail
me, but it's not running for real, so don't *use* it.)"
[Sameer Parekh, 94-04-03]
8.12.4. "Remailer Alliances"
+ "Remailer's Guild"
- to make there be a cost to flakiness (expulsion) and a
benefit to robustness, quality, reliability, etc.
(increased business)
- pings, tests, cooperative remailing
- spreading the traffic to reduce effectiveness of attacks
- which execute protocols
- e.g., to share the traffic at the last hop, to reduce
attacks on any single remailer
8.13. Loose Ends
8.13.1. Digital espionage
+ spy networks can be run safely, untraceably, undetectably
- anonymous contacts, pseudonyms
- digital dead drops, all done electronically...no chance
of being picked up, revealed as an "illegal" (a spy with
no diplomatic cover to save him) and shot
+ so many degrees of freedom in communications that
controlling all of them is essentially impossible
- Teledesic/Iridium/etc. satellites will increase this
capability further
+ unless crypto is blocked--and relatively quickly and
ruthlessly--the situation described here is unstoppable
- what some call "espionage" others would just call free
communication
- (Some important lessons for keeping corporate or business
secrets...basically, you can't.)
8.13.2. Remailers needs some "fuzziness," probably
+ for example, if a remailer has a strict policy of
accumulating N messages, then reordering and remailing
them, an attacker can send N - 1 messages in and know which
of the N messages leaving is the message they want to
follow; some uncertainly helps here
- the mathematics of how this small amount of uncertainty,
or scatter, could help is something that needs a detailed
analysis
- it may be that leaving some uncertainty, as with the
keylength issue, can help
8.13.3. Trying to confuse the eavesdroppers, by adding keywords they
will probably pick up on
+ the "remailer@csua.berkeley.edu" remailer now adds actual
paragraphs, such as this recent example:
- "I fixed the SKS. It came with a scope and a Russian
night scope. It's killer. My friend knows about a
really good gunsmith who has a machineshop and knows how
to convert stuff to automatic."
- How effective this ploy is is debatable
8.13.4. Restrictions on anonymous systems
- Anonymous AIDS testing. Kits for self-testing have been
under FDA review for 5 years, but counseling advocates have
delayed release on the grounds that some people will react
badly and perhaps kill themselves upon getting a positive
test result...they want the existing system to prevail. (I
mention this to show that anonymous systems are somtimes
opposed for ideological reasons.)
9. Policy: Clipper,Key Escrow, and Digital Telephony
9.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
9.2. SUMMARY: Policy: Clipper,Key Escrow, and Digital Telephony
9.2.1. Main Points
- Clipper has been a main unifying force, as 80% of all
Americans, and 95% of all computer types, are opposed.
- "Big Brother Inside"
9.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
- the main connections are _legal_
- some possible implications for limits on crypto
9.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
- There have been hundreds of articles on Clipper, in nearly
all popular magazines. Many of these were sent to the
Cypherpunks list and may be available in the archives. (I
have at least 80 MB of Cypherpunks list stuff, a lot of it
newspaper and magazine articles on Clipper!)
+ more Clipper information can be found at:
- "A good source is the Wired Online Clipper Archive. Send
e-mail to info-rama@wired.com. with no subject and the
words 'get help' and 'get clipper/index' in the body of
the message." [students@unsw.EDU.AU, alt.privacy.clipper,
1994-09-01]
9.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
- As with a couple of other sections, I won't try to be as
complete as some might desire. Just too many thousands of
pages of stuff to consider.
9.3. Introduction
9.3.1. What is Clipper?
- government holds the skeleton keys
- analogies to other systems
9.3.2. Why do most Cypherpunks oppose Clipper?
- fear of restrictions on crypto, derailing so many wonderful
possibilities
9.3.3. Why does Clipper rate its own section?
- The announcement of the "Escrowed Encryption Standard,"
EES, on April 16, 1993, was a galvanizing event for
Cypherpunks and for a large segment of the U. S.
population. The EES was announced originally as "Clipper,"
despite the use of the name Clipper by two major products
(the Intergraph CPU and a dBase software tool), and the
government backed off on the name. Too late, though, as the
name "Clipper" had become indelibly linked to this whole
proposal.
9.3.4. "Is stopping Clipper the main goal of Cypherpunks?"
- It certainly seems so at times, as Clipper has dominated
the topics since the Clipper announcement in April, 1993.
+ it has become so, with monkeywrenching efforts in several
areas
- lobbying and education against it (though informal, such
lobbying has been successful...look at NYT article)
- "Big Brother Inside" and t-shirts
- technical monkeywrenching (Matt Blaze...hesitate to claim
any credit, but he has been on our list, attended a
meeting, etc.)
- Although it may seem so, Clipper is just one
aspect...step...initiative.
- Developing new software tools, writing code, deploying
remailers and digital cash are long-range projects of great
importance.
- The Clipper key escrow proposal came along (4-93) at an
opportune time for Cypherpunks and became a major focus.
Emergency meetings, analyses, etc.
9.4. Crypto Policy Issues
9.4.1. Peter Denning on crypto policy:
+ provided by Pat Farrell, 1994-08-20; Denning comments are
1992-01-22, presented at Computers, Freedom, and Privacy 2.
Peter D. uses the metaphor of a "clearing,"as in a forest,
for the place where people meet to trade, interact, etc.
What others call markets, agoras, or just "cyberspace."
- "Information technology in producing a clearing in which
individuals and corporations are key players besides
government. Any attempt by government to control the flow
of information over networks will be ignored or met with
outright hostility. There is no practical way that
government can control information except information
directly involved in the business of governing. It
should not try." [Peter Denning, PUBLIC POLICY FOR THE
21ST CENTURY, DRAFT 1/22/92]
- No word on how this view squares with his wife's control
freak views.
9.4.2. Will government and NSA in particular attempt to acquire some
kind of control over crypto companies?
+ speculations, apparently unfounded, that RSA Data Security
is influenced by NSA wishes
- weaknesses in the DES keys picked?
- and companies may be dramatically influenced by contracts
(and the witholding of them)
9.4.3. NIST and DSS
9.4.4. Export restrictions, Munitions List, ITAR
9.4.5. old crypto machines sold to Third World governments, cheaply
- perhaps they think they can make some changes and outsmart
the NSA (which probably has rigged it so any changes are
detectable and can be factored in)
- and just knowing the type of machine is a huge advantage
9.4.6. 4/28/97 The first of several P-K and RSA patents expires
+ U.S. Patent Number: 4200770
- Title: Cryptographic Apparatus and Method
- Inventors: Hellman, Diffie, Merkle
- Assignee: Stanford University
- Filed: September 6, 1977
- Granted: April 29, 1980
- [Expires: April 28, 1997]
+ remember that any one of these several patents held by
Public Key Partners (Stanford and M.I.T., with RSA Data
Security the chief dispenser of licenses) can block an
effort to bypass the others
- though this may get fought out in court
9.4.7. encryption will be needed inside computer systems
- for operating system protection
- for autonomous agents (active agents)
- for electronic money
9.5. Motivations for Crypto Laws
9.5.1. "What are the law enforcement and FBI worries?"
- "FBI Director Louis Freeh is worried. The bad guys are
beginning to see the light, and it is digital. ... Freeh
fears some pretty nasty folks have discovered they can
commit highway robbery and more, without even leaving home.
Worse, to Freeh and other top cops, by using some pretty
basic technologies, savvy criminals can do their crimes
without worrying about doing time.
"Some crooks, spies, drug traffickers, terrorists and
frauds already use the tools of the information age to
outfox law enforcement officers. Hackers use PBXs to hide
their tracks as they rip off phone companies and poke
around in other people's files. Reprogrammed cellular
phones give cops fits." [LAN Magazine,"Is it 1984?," by Ted
Bunker, August 1994]
- Their fears have some validity...in the same way that the
rulers in Gutenberg's time could have some concerns about
the implications of books (breaking of guilds, spread of
national secrets, pornography, atheism, etc.).
9.5.2. "What motivated Clipper? What did the Feds hope to gain?"
- ostensibly to stop terrorists (only the unsophisticated
ones, if alternatives are allowed)
- to force a standard on average Americans
- possibly to limit crypto development
+ Phil Karn provides an interesting motivation for Clipper:
"Key escrow exists only because the NSA doesn't want to
risk blame if some terrorist or drug dealer were to use an
unescrowed NSA-produced .....The fact that a terrorist or
drug dealer can easily go elsewhere and obtain other strong
or stronger algorithms without key escrow is irrelevant.
The NSA simply doesn't care as long as *they* can't be
blamed for whatever happens. Classic CYA, nothing
more.....A similar analysis applies to the export control
regulations regarding cryptography." [Phil Karn, 1994-08-
31]
- Bill Sommerfeld notes: "If this is indeed the case, Matt
Blaze's results should be particularly devastating to
them." [B.S., 1994-09-01]
9.5.3. Steve Witham has an interesting take on why folks like
Dorothy Denning and Donn Parker support key escrow so
ardently:
- "Maybe people like Dot and Don think of government as a
systems-administration sort of job. So here they are,
security experts advising the sys admins on things like...
setting permissions
allocating quotas
registering users and giving them passwords.....
deciding what utilities are and aren't available
deciding what software the users need, and installing it
(grudgingly, based on who's yelling the loudest)
setting up connections to other machines
deciding who's allowed to log in from "foreign hosts"
getting mail set up and running
buying new hardware from vendors
specifying the hardware to the vendors
...
"These are the things computer security experts advise on.
Maybe hammer experts see things as nails.
"Only a country is not a host system owned and administered
by the government, and citizens are not guests or users."
[Steve Witham, Government by Sysadmin, 1994-03-23]
9.5.4. Who would want to use key escrow?
9.5.5. "Will strong crypto really thwart government plans?"
- Yes, it will give citizens the basic capabilities that
foreign governments have had for many years
+ Despite talk about codebreakes and the expertise of the
NSA, the plain fact is that no major Soviet ciphers have
been broken for many years
+ recall the comment that NSA has not really broken any
Soviet systems in many years
- except for the cases, a la the Walker case, where
plaintext versions are gotten, i.e., where human
screwups occurred
- the image in so many novels of massive computers breaking
codes is absurd: modern ciphers will not be broken (but the
primitive ciphers used by so many Third World nations and
their embassies will continue to be child's play, even for
high school science fair projects...could be a good idea
for a small scene, about a BCC student who has his project
pulled)
9.5.6. "Why does the government want short keys?"
- Commercial products have often been broken by hackers. The
NSA actually has a charter to help businesses protect their
secrets; just not so strongly that the crypto is
unbreakable by them. (This of course has been part of the
tension between the two sides of the NSA for the past
couple of decades.)
+ So why does the government want crippled key lengths?
- "The question is: how do you thwart hackers while
permitting NSA access? The obvious answer is strong
algorithm(s) and relatively truncated keys." [Grady Ward,
sci.crypt, 1994-08-15]
9.6. Current Crypto Laws
9.6.1. "Has crypto been restricted in countries other than the
U.S.?"
- Many countries have restrictions on civilian/private use of
crypto. Some even insist that corporations either send all
transmissions in the clear, or that keys be provided to the
government. The Phillipines, for example. And certainly
regimes in the Communists Bloc, or what's left of it, will
likely have various laws restricting crypto. Possibly
draconian laws....in many cultures, use of crypto is
tantamount to espionage.
9.7. Crypto Laws Outside the U.S.
9.7.1. "International Escrow, and Other Nation's Crypto Policies?"
- The focus throughout this document on U.S. policy should
not lull non-Americans into complacency. Many nations
already have more Draconian policies on the private use of
encryption than the U.S. is even contemplating
(publically). France outlaws private crypto, though
enforcement is said to be problematic (but I would not want
the DGSE to be on my tail, that's for sure). Third World
countries often have bans on crypto, and mere possession of
random-looking bits may mean a spying conviction and a trip
to the gallows.
+ There are also several reports that European nations are
preparing to fall in line behind the U.S. on key escrow
- Norway
- Netherlands
- Britain
+ A conference in D.C. in 6/94, attended by Whit Diffie (and
reported on to us at the 6/94 CP meeting) had internation
escrow arrangements as a topic, with the crypto policy
makers of NIST and NSA describing various options
- bad news, because it could allow bilateral treaties to
supercede basic rights
- could be plan for getting key escrow made mandatory
+ there are also practical issues
+ who can decode international communications?
- do we really want the French reading Intel's
communications? (recall Matra-Harris)
- satellites? (like Iridium)
- what of multi-national messages, such as an encrypted
message posted to a message pool on the Internet...is
it to be escrowed with each of 100 nations?
9.7.2. "Will foreign countries use a U.S.-based key escrow system?"
- Lots of pressure. Lots of evidence of compliance.
9.7.3. "Is Europe Considering Key Escrow?"
- Yes, in spades. Lots of signs of this, with reports coming
in from residents of Europe and elsewhere. The Europeans
tend to be a bit more quiet in matters of public policy (at
least in some areas).
- "The current issue of `Communications Week International'
informs us that the European Union's Senior Officials Group
for Security of Information Systems has been considering
plans for standardising key escrow in Europe.
"Agreement had been held up by arguments over who should
hold the keys. France and Holland wanted to follow the
NSA's lead and have national governments assume this role;
other players wanted user organisations to do this." [
rja14@cl.cam.ac.uk (Ross Anderson), sci.crypt, Key Escrow
in Europe too, 1994-06-29]
9.7.4. "What laws do various countries have on encryption and the
use of encryption for international traffic?"
+ "Has France really banned encryption?"
- There are recurring reports that France does not allow
unfettered use of encryption.
- Hard to say. Laws on the books. But no indications that
the many French users of PGP, say, are being prosecuted.
- a nation whose leader, Francois Mitterand, was a Nazi
collaborationist, working with Petain and the Vichy
government (Klaus Barbie involved)
+ Some Specific Countries
- (need more info here)
+ Germany
- BND cooperates with U.S.
- Netherlands
- Russia
+ Information
- "Check out the ftp site at csrc.ncsl.nist.gov for a
document named something like "laws.wp" (There are
several of these, in various formats.) This contains a
survey of the positions of various countries, done for
NIST by a couple of people at Georgetown or George
Washington or some such university." [Philip Fites,
alt.security.pgp, 1994-07-03]
9.7.5. France planning Big Brother smart card?
- "PARIS, FRANCE, 1994 MAR 4 (NB) -- The French government
has confirmed its plans to replace citizen's paper-based ID
cards with credit card-sized "smart card" ID cards.
.....
"The cards contain details of recent transactions, as well
as act as an "electronic purse" for smaller value
transactions using a personal identification number (PIN)
as authorization. "Purse transactions" are usually separate
from the card credit/debit system, and, when the purse is
empty, it can be reloaded from the card at a suitable ATM
or retailer terminal." (Steve Gold/19940304)" [this was
forwarded to me for posting]
9.7.6. PTTs, local rules about modem use
9.7.7. "What are the European laws on "Data Privacy" and why are
they such a terrible idea?"
- Various European countries have passed laws about the
compiling of computerized records on people without their
explicit permission. This applies to nearly all
computerized records--mailing lists, dossiers, credit
records, employee files, etc.--though some exceptions exist
and, in general, companies can find ways to compile records
and remain within the law.
- The rules are open to debate, and the casual individual who
cannot afford lawyers and advisors, is likely to be
breaking the laws repeatedly. For example, storing the
posts of people on the Cypherpunks list in any system
retrievable by name would violate Britain's Data Privacy
laws. That almost no such case would ever result in a
prosecution (for practical reasons) does not mean the laws
are acceptable.
- To many, these laws are a "good idea." But the laws miss
the main point, give a false sense of security (as the real
dossier-compilers are easily able to obtain exemptions, or
are government agencies themselves), and interfere in what
people do with information that properly and legally comes
there way. (Be on the alert for "civil rights" groups like
the ACLU and EFF to push for such data privacy laws. The
irony of Kapor's connection to Lotus and the failed
"Marketplace" CD-ROM product cannot be ignored.)
- Creating a law which bans the keeping of certain kinds of
records is an invitation to having "data inspectors"
rummaging through one's files. Or some kind of spot checks,
or even software key escrow.
- (Strong crypto makes these laws tough to enforce. Either
the laws go, or the counties with such laws will then have
to limit strong crypto....not that that will help in the
long run.)
- The same points apply to well-meaning proposals to make
employer monitoring of employees illegal. It sounds like a
privacy-enhancing idea, but it tramples upon the rights of
the employer to ensure that work is being done, to
basically run his business as he sees fit, etc. If I hire a
programmer and he's using my resources, my network
connections, to run an illegal operation, he exposes my
company to damages, and of course he isn't doing the job I
paid him to do. If the law forbids me to monitor this
situation, or at least to randomly check, then he can
exploit this law to his advantage and to my disadvantage.
(Again, the dangers of rigid laws, nonmarket
solutions,(lied game theory.)
9.7.8. on the situation in Australia
+ Matthew Gream [M.Gream@uts.edu.au] informed us that the
export situation in Oz is just as best as in the U.S. [1994-
09-06] (as if we didn't know...much as we all like to dump
on Amerika for its fascist laws, it's clear that nearly all
countries are taking their New World Order Marching Orders
from the U.S., and that many of them have even more
repressive crypto laws alredy in place...they just don't
get the discussion the U.S. gets, for apparent reasons)
- "Well, fuck that for thinking I was living under a less
restrictive regime -- and I can say goodbye to an
international market for my software.]
- (I left his blunt language as is, for impact.)
9.7.9. "For those interested, NIST have a short document for FTP,
'Identification & Analysis of Foreign Laws & Regulations
Pertaining to the Use of Commercial Encryption Products for
Voice & Data Communications'. Dated Jan 1994." [Owen Lewis,
Re: France Bans Encryption, alt.security.pgp, 1994-07-07]
9.8. Digital Telephony
9.8.1. "What is Digital Telephony?"
- The Digital Telephony Bill, first proposed under Bush and
again by Clinton, is in many ways much worse than Clipper.
It has gotten less attention, for various reasons.
- For one thing, it is seen as an extension by some of
existing wiretap capabilities. And, it is fairly abstract,
happening behind the doors of telephone company switches.
- The implications are severe: mandatory wiretap and pen
register (who is calling whom) capaibilities, civil
penalties of up to $10,000 a day for insufficient
compliance, mandatory assistance must be provided, etc.
- If it is passed, it could dictate future technology. Telcos
who install it will make sure that upstart technologies
(e.g., Cypherpunks who find ways to ship voice over
computer lines) are also forced to "play by the same
rules." Being required to install government-accessible tap
points even in small systems would of course effectively
destroy them.
- On the other hand, it is getting harder and harder to make
Digital Telephony workable, even by mandate. As Jim
Kallstrom of the FBI puts it: ""Today will be the cheapest
day on which Congress could fix this thing," Kallstrom
said. "Two years from now, it will be geometrically more
expensive."" [LAN Magazine,"Is it 1984?," by Ted Bunker,
August 1994]
- This gives us a goal to shoot for: sabotage the latest
attempt to get Digital Telephony passed into law and it may
make it too intractable to *ever* be passed.
+ "Today will be the cheapest day on which
- Congress could fix this thing," Kallstrom said. "Two
years from now,
- it will be geometrically more expensive."
- The message is clear: delay Digital Telephony. Sabotage it
in the court of public opinion, spread the word, make it
flop. (Reread your "Art of War" for Sun Tsu's tips on
fighting your enemy.)
-
9.8.2. "What are the dangers of the Digital Telephony Bill?"
- It makes wiretapping invisible to the tappee.
+ If passed into law, it makes central office wiretapping
trivial, automatic.
- "What should worry people is what isn't in the news (and
probably never will until it's already embedded in comm
systems). A true 'Clipper' will allow remote tapping on
demand. This is very easily done to all-digital
communications systems. If you understand network routers
and protocol it's easy to envision how simple it would be
to 're-route' a copy of a target comm to where ever you
want it to go..." [domonkos@access.digex.net (andy
domonkos), comp.org.eff.talk, 1994-06-29]
9.8.3. "What is the Digital Telephony proposal/bill?
- proposed a few years ago...said to be inspiration for PGP
- reintroduced Feb 4, 1994
- earlier versrion:
+ "1) DIGITAL TELEPHONY PROPOSAL
- "To ensure law enforcement's continued ability to conduct
court-
- authorized taps, the administration, at the request of
the
- Dept. of Justice and the FBI, proposed ditigal telephony
- legislation. The version submitted to Congress in Sept.
1992
- would require providers of electronic communication
services
- and private branch exchange (PBX) operators to ensure
that the
- government's ability to lawfully intercept communications
is not
- curtailed or prevented entirely by the introduction of
advanced
- technology."
9.9. Clipper, Escrowed Encyption Standard
9.9.1. The Clipper Proposal
- A bombshell was dropped on April 16, 1993. A few of us saw
it coming, as we'd been debating...
9.9.2. "How long has the government been planning key escrow?"
- since about 1989
- ironically, we got about six months advance warning
- my own "A Trial Balloon to Ban Encryption" alerted the
world to the thinking of D. Denning....she denies having
known about key escorw until the day before it was
announced, which I find implausible (not calling her a
liar, but...)
+ Phil Karn had this to say to Professor Dorothy Denning,
several weeks prior to the Clipper announcement:
- "The private use of strong cryptography provides, for the
very first time, a truly effective safeguard against this
sort of government abuse. And that's why it must continue
to be free and unregulated.
- "I should credit you for doing us all a very important
service by raising this issue. Nothing could have lit a
bigger fire under those of us who strongly believe in a
citizens' right to use cryptography than your proposals
to ban or regulate it. There are many of us out here who
share this belief *and* have the technical skills to turn
it into practice. And I promise you that we will fight
for this belief to the bitter end, if necessary." [Phil
Karn, 1993-03-23]
-
-
9.9.3. Technically, the "Escrowed Encryption Standard," or EES. But
early everyone still calls it "Clipper, " even if NSA
belatedly realized Intergraph's won product has been called
this for many years, a la the Fairchild processor chip of the
same name. And the database product of the same name. I
pointed this out within minutes of hearing about this on
April 16th, 1993, and posted a comment to this effect on
sci.crypt. How clueless can they be to not have seen in many
months of work what many of us saw within seconds?
9.9.4. Need for Clipper
9.9.5. Further "justifications" for key escrow
+ anonymous consultations that require revealing of
identities
- suicide crisis intervention
- confessions of abuse, crimes, etc. (Tarasoff law)
- corporate records that Feds want to look at
+ Some legitimate needs for escrowed crypto
- for corporations, to bypass the passwords of departed,
fired, deceased employees,
9.9.6. Why did the government develop Clipper?
9.9.7. "Who are the designated escrow agents?"
- Commerce (NIST) and Treasury (Secret Service).
9.9.8. Whit Diffie
- Miles Schmid was architect
+ international key escrow
- Denning tried to defend it....
9.9.9. What are related programs?
9.9.10. "Where do the names "Clipper" and "Skipjack" come from?
- First, the NSA and NIST screwed up big time by choosing the
name "Clipper," which has long been the name of the 32-bit
RISC processor (one of the first) from Fairchild, later
sold to Intergraph. It is also the name of a database
compiler. Most of us saw this immediately.
-
+ Clippers are boats, so are skipjacks ("A small sailboat
having a
- bottom shaped like a flat V and vertical sides" Am
Heritage. 3rd).
- Suggests a nautical theme, which fits with the
Cheseapeake environs of
- the Agency (and small boats have traditionally been a way
for the
+ Agencies to dispose of suspected traitors and spies).
-
- However, Capstone is not a boat, nor is Tessera, so the
trend fails.
9.10. Technical Details of Clipper, Skipjack, Tessera, and EES
9.10.1. Clipper chip fabrication details
+ ARM6 core being used
- but also rumors of MIPS core in Tessera
- MIPS core reportedly being designed into future versions
- National also built (and may operate) a secure wafer fab
line for NSA, reportedly located on the grounds of Ft.
Meade--though I can't confirm the location or just what
National's current involvement still is. May only be for
medium-density chips, such as key material (built under
secure conditions).
9.10.2. "Why is the Clipper algorithm classified?"
- to prevent non-escrow versions, which could still use the
(presumably strong) algorithm and hardware but not be
escrowed
- cryptanalysis is always easier if the algorithms are known
:-}
- general government secrecy
- backdoors?
9.10.3. If Clipper is flawed (the Blaze LEAF Blower), how can it
still be useful to the NSA?
- by undermining commercial alternatives through subsidized
costs (which I don't think will happen, given the terrible
PR Clipper has gotten)
- mandated by law or export rules
- and the Blaze attack is--at present--not easy to use (and
anyone able to use it is likely to be sophisticated enough
to use preencryption anyway)
9.10.4. What about weaknesses of Clipper?
- In the views of many, a flawed approach. That is, arguing
about wrinkles plays into the hands of the Feds.
9.10.5. "What are some of the weaknesses in Clipper?"
- the basic idea of key escrow is an infringement on liberty
+ access to the keys
- "
+ "There's a big door in the side with a
- big neon sign saying "Cops and other Authorized People
Only";
- the trapdoor is the fact that anybody with a fax
machine can make
- themselves and "Authorized Person" badge and walk in.
- possible back doors in the Skipjace algorithm
+ generation of the escrow keys
-
+ "There's another trapdoor, which is that if you can
predict the escrow
- keys by stealing the parameters used by the Key
Generation Bureau to
- set them, you don't need to get the escrow keys from
the keymasters,
- you can gen them yourselves. "
9.10.6. Mykotronx
- MYK-78e chip, delays, VTI, fuses
- National Semiconductor is working with Mykotronx on a
faster implementation of the
Clipper/Capstone/Skipjack/whatever system. (May or may not
be connected directly with the iPower product line. Also,
the MIPS processor core may be used, instead of the ARM
core, which is said to be too slow.)
9.10.7. Attacks on EES
- sabotaging the escrow data base
+ stealing it, thus causing a collapse in confidence
- Perry Metzger's proposal
- FUD
9.10.8. Why is the algorithm secret?
9.10.9. Skipjack is 80 bits, which is 24 bits longer than the 56 bits
of DES. so
9.10.10. "What are the implications of the bug in Tessera found by
Matt Blaze?"
- Technically, Blaze's work was done on a Tessera card, which
implements the Skipjace algorithm. The Clipper phone system
may be slightly different and details may vary; the Blaze
attack may not even work, at least not practically.
- " The announcement last month was about a discovery that,
with a half-hour or so of time on an average PC, a user
could forge a bogus LEAF (the data used by the government
to access the back door into Clipper encryption). With such
a bogus LEAF, the Clipper chip on the other end would
accept and decrypt the communication, but the back door
would not work for the government." [ Steve Brinich,
alt.privacy.clipper, 1994-07-04]
- "The "final" pre-print version (dated August 20, 1994) of
my paper, "Protocol Failure in the Escrowed Encryption
Standard" is now available. You can get it in PostScript
form via anonymous ftp from research.att.com in the file
/dist/mab/eesproto.ps . This version replaces the
preliminary draft (June 3) version that previously occupied
the same file. Most of the substance is identical,
although few sections are expanded and a few minor errors
are now corrected." [Matt Blaze, 1994-09-04]
9.11. Products, Versions -- Tessera, Skipjack, etc.
9.11.1. "What are the various versions and products associated with
EES?"
- Clipper, the MYK-78 chip.
- Skipjack.
+ Tessera. The PCMCIA card version of the Escrowed Encryption
Standard.
- the version Matt Blaze found a way to blow the LEAF
- National Semiconductor "iPower" card may or may not
support Tessera (conflicting reports).
9.11.2. AT&T Surety Communications
- NSA may have pressured them not to release DES-based
products
9.11.3. Tessera cards
- iPower
- Specifications for the Tessera card interface can be found
in several places, including " csrc.ncsl.nist.gov"--see the
file cryptcal.txt [David Koontz, 1994-08-08].
9.12. Current Status of EES, Clipper, etc.
9.12.1. "Did the Administration really back off on Clipper? I heard
that Al Gore wrote a letter to Rep. Cantwell, backing off."
- No, though Clipper has lost steam (corporations weren't
interested in buying Clipper phones, and AT&T was very late
in getting "Surety" phones out).
- The Gore announcement may actually indicate a shift in
emphasis to "software key escrow" (my best guess).
- Our own Michael Froomkin, a lawyer, writes: "The letter is
a nullity. It almost quotes from testimony given a year
earlier by NIST to Congress. Get a copy of Senator Leahy's
reaction off the eff www server. He saw it for the empty
thing it is....Nothing has changed except Cantwell dropped
her bill for nothing." [A.Michael Froomkin,
alt.privacy.clipper, 1994-09-05]
9.13. National Information Infrastructure, Digital Superhighway
9.13.1. Hype on the Information Superhighway
- It's against the law to talk abou the Information
Superhighway without using at least one of the overworked
metaphors: road kill, toll boths, passing lanes, shoulders,
on-ramps, off-ramps, speeding, I-way, Infobahn, etc.
- Most of what is now floating around the suddenly-trendy
idea of the Digital Superduperway is little more than hype.
And mad metaphors. Misplaced zeal, confusing tangential
developments with real progress. Much like libertarians
assuming the space program is something they should somehow
be working on.
- For example, the much-hyped "Pizza Hut" on the Net (home
pizza pages, I guess). It is already being dubbed "the
first case of true Internet commerce." Yeah, like the Coke
machines on the Net so many years ago were examples of
Internet commerce. Pure hype. Madison Avenue nonsense. Good
for our tabloid generation.
9.13.2. "Why is the National Information Infrastructure a bad idea?"
- NII = Information Superhighway = Infobahn = Iway = a dozen
other supposedly clever and punning names
+ Al Gore's proposal:
- links hospitals, schools, government
+ hard to imagine that the free-wheeling anarchy of the
Internet would persist..more likely implications:
- "is-a-person" credentials, that is, proof of identity,
and hence tracking, of all interactions
- the medical and psychiatric records would be part of
this (psychiatrists are leery of this, but they may
have no choice but to comply under the National Health
Care plans being debated)
+ There are other bad aspects:
- government control, government inefficiency, government
snooping
- distortion of markets ("universal access')
- restriction of innovation
- is not needed...other networks are doing perfectly well,
and will be placed where they are needed and will be
locally paid for
9.13.3. NII, Video Dialtone
+ "Dialtone"
- phone companies offer an in-out connection, and charge
for the connection, making no rulings on content (related
to the "Common Carrier" status)
+ for video-cable, I don't believe there is an analogous
set-up being looked at
+ cable t.v.
- Carl Kadie's comments to Sternlight
9.13.4. The prospects and dangers of Net subsidies
- "universal access," esp. if same happens in health care
- those that pay make the rules
+ but such access will have strings attached
- limits on crypto
-
- universal access also invites more spamming, a la the
"Freenet" spams, in which folks keep getting validated as
new users: any universal access system that is not pay-as-
you-go will be sensitive to this *or* will result in calls
for universal ID system (is-a-person credentialling)
9.13.5. NII, Superhighway, I-way
- crypto policy
- regulation, licensing
9.14. Government Interest in Gaining Control of Cyberspace
9.14.1. Besides Clipper, Digital Telephony, and the National
Information Infrastructure, the government is interested in
other areas, such as e-mail delivery (US Postal Service
proposal) and maintenance of network systems in general.
9.14.2. Digital Telephony, ATM networks, and deals being cut
- Rumblings of deals being cut
- a new draft is out [John Gilmore, 1994-08-03]
- Encryption with hardware at full ATM speeds
- and SONET networks (experimental, Bay Area?)
9.14.3. The USPS plans for mail, authentication, effects on
competition, etc.
+ This could have a devastating effect on e-mail and on
cyberspace in general, especially if it is tied in to other
government proposals in an attempt to gain control of
cyberspace.
- Digital Telelphony, Clipper, pornography laws and age
enforcement (the Amateur Action case), etc.
+ "Does the USPS really have a monopoly on first class mail?"
- and on "routes"?
- "The friendly PO has recently been visiting the mail
rooms of 2) The friendly PO has recently been visiting
the mail rooms of corporations in the Bay Area, opening
FedX, etc. packages (not protected by the privacy laws of
the PO's first class mail), and fining companies ($10,000
per violation, as I recall), for sending non-time-
sensitive documents via FedX when they could have been
sent via first-class mail." [Lew Glendenning, USPS
digital signature annoucement, sci.crypt, 1994-08-23] (A
citation or a news story would make this more credible,
but I've heard of similar spot checks.)
- The problems with government agencies competing are well-
known. First, they often have shoddy service..civil service
jobs, unfireable workers, etc. Second, they often cannot be
sued for nonperformance. Third, they often have government-
granted monopolies.
+ The USPS proposal may be an opening shot in an attempt to
gain control of electronic mail...it never had control of e-
mail, but its monopoly on first-class mail may be argued by
them to extend to cyberspace.
- Note: FedEx and the other package and overnight letter
carriers face various restrictions on their service; for
example, they cannot offer "routes" and the economies
that would result in.
- A USPS takeover of the e-mail business would mean an end
to many Cypherpunks objectives, including remailers,
digital postage, etc.
- The challenge will be to get these systems deployed as
quickly as possible, to make any takeover by the USPS all
the more difficult.
9.15. Software Key Escrow
9.15.1. (This section needs a lot more)
9.15.2. things are happening fast....
9.15.3. TIS, Carl Ellison, Karlsruhe
9.15.4. objections to key escrow
- "Holding deposits in real estate transactions is a classic
example. Built-in wiretaps are *not* escrow, unless the
government is a party to your contract. As somebody on the
list once said, just because the Mafia call themselves
"businessmen" doesn't make them legitimate; calling
extorted wiretaps "escrow" doesn't make them a service.
"The government has no business making me get their
permission to talk to anybody about anything in any
language I choose, and they have no business insisting I
buy "communication protection service" from some of their
friends to do it, any more than the aforenamed
"businessmen" have any business insisting I buy "fire
insurance" from *them*." [Bill Stewart, 1994-07-24]
9.15.5. Micali's "Fair Escrow"
- various efforts underway
- need section here
- Note: participants at Karlsruhe Conference report that a
German group may have published on software key escrow
years before Micali filed his patent (reports that NSA
officials were "happy")
9.16. Politics, Opposition
9.16.1. "What should Cypherpunks say about Clipper?"
- A vast amount has been written, on this list and in dozens
of other forums.
- Eric Hughes put it nicely a while back:
- "The hypothetical backdoor in clipper is a charlatan's
issue by comparison, as is discussion of how to make a key
escrow system
'work.' Do not be suckered into talking about an issue
that is not
important. If someone want to talk about potential back
doors, refuse to speculate. The existence of a front door
(key escrow) make back door issues pale in comparison.
"If someone wants to talk about how key escrow works,
refuse to
elaborate. Saying that this particular key escrow system
is bad has a large measure of complicity in saying that
escrow systems in general are OK. Always argue that this
particular key escrow system is bad because it is a key
escrow system, not because it has procedural flaws.
"This right issue is that the government has no right to my
private communications. Every other issue is the wrong
issue and detracts from this central one. If we defeat one
particular system without defeating all other possible such
systems at the same time, we have not won at all; we have
delayed the time of reckoning." [ Eric Hughes, Work the
work!, 1993-06-01]
9.16.2. What do most Americans think about Clipper and privacy?"
- insights into what we face
+ "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week
by Yankelovich
- Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to
protect the privacy of phone
- calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct
wiretaps.
- When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they
opposed it."
- Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", Time,
Mar. 4, 1994
9.16.3. Does anyone actually support Clipper?
+ There are actually legitimate uses for forms of escrow:
- corporations
- other partnerships
9.16.4. "Who is opposed to Clipper?"
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). "The USACM urges
the Administration at this point to withdraw the Clipper
Chip proposal and to begin an open and public review of
encryption policy. The escrowed encryption initiative
raises vital issues of privacy, law enforcement,
competitiveness and scientific innovation that must be
openly discussed." [US ACM, DC Office" ,
USACM Calls for Clipper Withdrawal, press release, 1994-06-
30]
9.16.5. "What's so bad about key escrow?"
+ If it's truly voluntary, there can be a valid use for this.
+ Are trapdoors justified in some cases?
+ Corporations that wish to recover encrypted data
+ several scenarios
- employee encrypts important files, then dies or is
otherwise unavailable
+ employee leaves company before decrypting all files
- some may be archived and not needed to be opened
for many years
- employee may demand "ransom" (closely related to
virus extortion cases)
- files are found but the original encryptor is
unknown
+ Likely situation is that encryption algorithms will be
mandated by corporation, with a "master key" kept
available
- like a trapdoor
- the existence of the master key may not even be
publicized within the company (to head off concerns
about security, abuses, etc.)
+ Government is trying to get trapdoors put in
- S.266, which failed ultimately (but not before
creating a ruckus)
+ If the government requires it...
- Key escrow means the government can be inside your home
without you even knowing it
- and key escrow is not really escrow...what does one get
back from the "escrow" service?
9.16.6. Why governments should not have keys
- can then set people up by faking messages, by planting
evidence
- can spy on targets for their own purposes (which history
tells us can include bribery, corporate espionage, drug-
running, assassinations, and all manner of illegal and
sleazy activities)
- can sabotage contracts, deals, etc.
- would give them access to internal corporate communications
- undermines the whole validity of such contracts, and of
cryptographic standards of identity (shakes confidence)
- giving the King or the State the power to impersonate
another is a gross injustice
- imagine the government of Iran having a backdoor to read
the secret journals of its subjects!
- 4th Amendment
- attorney-client privilege (with trapdoors, no way to know
that government has not breached confidentiality)
9.16.7. "How might the Clipper chip be foiled or defeated?"
- Politically, market-wise, and technical
- If deployed, that is
+ Ways to Defeat Clipper
- preencryption or superencryption
- LEAF blower
- plug-compatible, reverse-engineered chip
- sabotage
- undermining confidence
- Sun Tzu
9.16.8. How can Clipper be defeated, politically?
9.16.9. How can Clipper be defeated, in the market?
9.16.10. How can Clipper be defeated, technologically?
9.16.11. Questions
+ Clipper issues and questions
- a vast number of questions, comments, challenges,
tidbits, details, issues
- entire newsgroups devoted to this
+ "What criminal or terrrorist will be smart enough to use
encryption but dumb enough to use Clipper?"
- This is one of the Great Unanswered Questions. Clipper's
supporter's are mum on this one. Suggesting....
+ "Why not encrypt data before using the Clipper/EES?"
- "Why can't you just encrypt data before the clipper chip?
Two answers:
1) the people you want to communicate with won't have
hardware to
decrypt your data, statistically speaking. The beauty
of clipper
from the NSA point of view is that they are leveraging
the
installed base (they hope) of telephones and making it
impossible
(again, statistically) for a large fraction of the
traffic to be
untappable.
2) They won't license bad people like you to make
equipment like the
system you describe. I'll wager that the chip
distribution will be
done in a way to prevent significant numbers of such
systems from
being built, assuring that (1) remains true." [Tom
Knight, sci.crypt, 6-5-93]
-
+ What are the implications of mandatory key escrow?
+ "escrow" is misleading...
- wrong use of the term
- implies a voluntary, and returnable, situation
+ "If key escrow is "voluntary," what's the big deal?"
- Taxes are supposedly "voluntary," too.
- A wise man prepares for what is _possible_ and even
_likely_, not just what is announced as part of public
policy; policies can and do change. There is plenty of
precedent for a "voluntary" system being made mandatory.
- The form of the Clipper/EES system suggests eventual
mandatory status; the form of such a ban is debatable.
+ "What is 'superencipherment,' and can it be used to defeat
Clipper?"
- preencrypting
- could be viewed as a non-English language
+ how could Clipper chip know about it (entropy measures?)
- far-fetched
- wouldn't solve traffic anal. problem
- What's the connection between Clipper and export laws?
+ "Doesn't this make the Clipper database a ripe target?"
- for subversion, sabotage, espionage, theft
- presumably backups will be kept, and _these_ will also be
targets
+ "Is Clipper just for voice encryption?"
- Clipper is a data encryption chip, with the digital data
supplied by an ADC located outside the chip. In
principle, it could thus be used for data encryption in
general.
- In practice, the name Clipper is generally associated
with telephone use, while "Capstone" is the data standard
(some differences, too). The "Skipjack" algorithm is used
in several of these proposed systems (Tessera, also).
9.16.12. "Why is Clipper worse than what we have now?"
+ John Gilmore answered this question in a nice essay. I'm
including the whole thing, including a digression into
cellular telephones, because it gives some insight--and
names some names of NSA liars--into how NSA and NIST have
used their powers to thwart true security.
- "It's worse because the market keeps moving toward
providing real encryption.
"If Clipper succeeds, it will be by displacing real
secure encryption. If real secure encryption makes it
into mass market communications products, Clipper will
have failed. The whole point is not to get a few
Clippers used by cops; the point is to make it a
worldwide standard, rather than having 3-key triple-DES
with RSA and Diffie-Hellman become the worldwide
standard.
"We'd have decent encryption in digital cellular phones
*now*, except for the active intervention of Jerry
Rainville of NSA, who `hosted' a meeting of the standards
committee inside Ft. Meade, lied to them about export
control to keep committee documents limited to a small
group, and got a willing dupe from Motorola, Louis
Finkelstein, to propose an encryption scheme a child
could break. The IS-54 standard for digital cellular
doesn't describe the encryption scheme -- it's described
in a separate document, which ordinary people can't get,
even though it's part of the official accredited
standard. (Guess who accredits standards bodies though -
- that's right, the once pure NIST.)
"The reason it's secret is because it's so obviously
weak. The system generates a 160-bit "key" and then
simply XORs it against each block of the compressed
speech. Take any ten or twenty blocks and recover the
key by XORing frequent speech patterns (like silence, or
the letter "A") against pieces of the blocks to produce
guesses at the key. You try each guess on a few blocks,
and the likelihood of producing something that decodes
like speech in all the blocks is small enough that you'll
know when your guess is the real key.
"NSA is continuing to muck around in the Digital Cellular
standards committee (TR 45.3) this year too. I encourage
anyone who's interested to join the committee, perhaps as
an observer. Contact the Telecommunications Industry
Association in DC and sign up. Like any standards
committee, it's open to the public and meets in various
places around the country. I'll lend you a lawyer if
you're a foreign national, since the committee may still
believe that they must exclude foreign nationals from
public discussions of cryptography. Somehow the crypto
conferences have no trouble with this; I think it's
called the First Amendment. NSA knows the law here --
indeed it enforces it via the State Dept -- but lied to
the committee." [John Gilmore, "Why is clipper worse than
"no encryption like we have," comp.org.eff.talk, 1994-04-
27]
9.16.13. on trusting the government
- "WHAT AM THE MORAL OF THE STORY, UNCLE REMUS?....When the
government makes any announcement (ESPECIALLY a denial),
you should figure out what the government is trying to get
you to do--and do the opposite. Contrarianism with a
vengance. Of all the advice I've offered on the
Cypherpunks Channel, this is absolutely the most certain."
[Sandy Sandfort, 1994-07-17]
- if the Founders of the U.S. could see the corrupt,
socialist state this nation has degenerated to, they'd be
breaking into missile silos and stealing nukes to use
against the central power base.
+ can the government be trusted to run the key escrow system?
- "I just heard on the news that 1300 IRS employees have
been disciplined for unauthorized accesses to
electronically filed income tax returns. ..I'm sure they
will do much better, though, when the FBI runs the phone
system, the Post Office controls digital identity and
Hillary takes care of our health." [Sandy Sandfort, 1994-
07-19]
- This is just one of many such examples: Watergate ("I am
not a crook!"), Iran-Contra, arms deals, cocaine
shipments by the CIA, Teapot Dome, graft, payoffs,
bribes, assassinations, Yankee-Cowboy War, Bohemian
Grove, Casolaro, more killings, invasions, wars. The
government that is too chicken to ever admit it lost a
war, and conspicuously avoids diplomatic contact with
enemies it failed to vanquish (Vietnam, North Korea,
Cuba, etc.), while quickly becoming sugar daddy to the
countries it did vanquish...the U.S. appears to be
lacking in practicality. (Me, I consider it wrong for
anyone to tell me I can't trade with folks in another
country, whether it's Haiti, South Africa, Cuba, Korea,
whatever. Crypto anarchy means we'll have _some_ of the
ways of bypassing these laws, of making our own moral
decisions without regard to the prevailing popular
sentiment of the countries in which we live at the
moment.)
9.17. Legal Issues with Escrowed Encryption and Clipper
9.17.1. As John Gilmore put it in a guest editorial in the "San
Francisco Examiner," "...we want the public to see a serious
debate about why the Constitution should be burned in order
to save the country." [J.G., 1994-06-26, quoted by S.
Sandfort]
9.17.2. "I don't see how Clipper gives the government any powers or
capabilities it doesn't already have. Comments?"
9.17.3. Is Clipper really voluntary?
9.17.4. If Clipper is voluntary, who will use it?
9.17.5. Restrictions on Civilian Use of Crypto
9.17.6. "Has crypto been restricted in the U.S.?"
9.17.7. "What legal steps are being taken?"
- Zimmermann
- ITAR
9.17.8. reports that Department of Justice has a compliance
enforcement role in the EES [heard by someone from Dorothy
Denning, 1994-07], probably involving checking the law
enforcement agencies...
9.17.9. Status
+ "Will government agencies use Clipper?"
- Ah, the embarrassing question. They claim they will, but
there are also reports that sensitive agencies will not
use it, that Clipper is too insecure for them (key
lenght, compromise of escrow data, etc.). There may also
be different procedures (all agencies are equal, but some
are more equal than others).
- Clipper is rated for unclassified use, so this rules out
many agencies and many uses. An interesting double
standard.
+ "Is the Administration backing away from Clipper?"
+ industry opposition surprised them
- groups last summer, Citicorp, etc.
- public opinion
- editorial remarks
- so they may be preparing alternative
- and Gilmore's FOIA, Blaze's attack, the Denning
nonreview, the secrecy of the algortithm
+ will not work
- spies won't use it, child pornographers probably won't
use it (if alternatives exist, which may be the whole
point)
- terrorists won't use it
- Is Clipper in trouble?
9.17.10. "Will Clipper be voluntary?"
- Many supporters of Clipper have cited the voluntary nature
of Clipper--as expressed in some policy statements--and
have used this to counter criticism.
+ However, even if truly voluntary, some issues
+ improper role for government to try to create a
commercial standard
- though the NIST role can be used to counter this point,
partly
- government can and does make it tough for competitors
- export controls (statements by officials on this exist)
+ Cites for voluntary status:
- original statement says it will be voluntary
- (need to get some statements here)
+ Cites for eventual mandatory status:
- "Without this initiative, the government will eventually
become helpless to defend the nation." [Louis Freeh,
director of the FBI, various sources]
- Steven Walker of Trusted Information Systems is one of
many who think so: "Based on his analysis, Walker added,
"I'm convinced that five years from now they'll say 'This
isn't working,' so we'll have to change the rules." Then,
he predicted, Clipper will be made mandatory for all
encoded communications." [
+ Parallels to other voluntary programs
- taxes
9.18. Concerns
9.18.1. Constitutional Issues
- 4th Amend
- privacy of attorney-client, etc.
+ Feds can get access without public hearings, records
- secret intelligence courts
-
+ "It is uncontested (so far as I have read) that under
certain circum-
- stances, the Federal intelligence community wil be
permitted to
- obtain Clipper keys without any court order on public
record. Only
- internal, classified proceedings will protect our
privacy."
9.18.2. "What are some dangers of Clipper, if it is widely adopted?"
+ sender/receiver ID are accessible without going to the key
escrow
- this makes traffic analysis, contact lists, easy to
generate
+ distortions of markets ("chilling effects") as a plan by
government
- make alternatives expensive, hard to export, grounds for
suspicion
- use of ITAR to thwart alternatives (would be helped if
Cantwell bill to liberalize export controls on
cryptography (HR 3627) passes)
+ VHDL implementations possible
- speculates Lew Glendenning, sci.crypt, 4-13-94
- and recall MIPS connection (be careful here)
9.18.3. Market Isssues
9.18.4. "What are the weaknesses in Clipper?"
+ Carl Ellison analyzed it this way:
- "It amuses the gallows-humor bone in me to see people
busily debating the quality of Skipjack as an algorithm
and the quality of the review of its strength.
Someone proposes to dangle you over the Grand Canyon
using
sewing thread
tied to
steel chain
tied to
knitting yarn
and you're debating whether the steel chain has been X-
rayed properly to see if there are flaws in the metal.
"Key generation, chip fabrication, court orders,
distribution of keys once acquired from escrow agencies
and safety of keys within escrow agencies are some of the
real weaknesses. Once those are as strong as my use of
1024-bit RSA and truly random session keys in keeping
keys on the two sides of a conversation with no one in
the middle able to get the key, then we need to look at
the steel chain in the middle: Skipjack itself." [Carl
Ellison, 1993-08-02]
+ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 17:29:54 EDT
From: cme@ellisun.sw.stratus.com (Carl Ellison)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: cross-post
Status: OR
Path: transfer.stratus.com!ellisun.sw.stratus.com!cme
From: cme@ellisun.sw.stratus.com (Carl Ellison)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Skipjack review as a side-track
Date: 2 Aug 1993 21:25:11 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Marlboro MA
Lines: 28
Message-ID: <23k0nn$8gk@transfer.stratus.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ellisun.sw.stratus.com
It amuses the gallows-humor bone in me to see people
busily debating the
quality of Skipjack as an algorithm and the quality of
the review of its
strength.
Someone proposes to dangle you over the Grand Canyon
using
sewing thread
tied to
steel chain
tied to
knitting yarn
and you're debating whether the steel chain has been X-
rayed properly
to see if there are flaws in the metal.
Key generation, chip fabrication, court orders,
distribution of keys once
acquired from escrow agencies and safety of keys within
escrow agencies are
some of the real weaknesses. Once those are as strong as
my use of
1024-bit RSA and truly random session keys in keeping
keys on the two sides
of a conversation with no one in the middle able to get
the key, then we
need to look at the steel chain in the middle: Skipjack
itself.
- "Key generation, chip fabrication, court orders,
distribution of keys once acquired from escrow agencies
and safety of keys within escrow agencies are some of
the real weaknesses. Once those are as strong as my
use of 1024-bit RSA and truly random session keys in
keeping keys on the two sides of a conversation with no
one in the middle able to get the key, then we need to
look at the steel chain in the middle: Skipjack
itself."
9.18.5. What it Means for the Future
9.18.6. Skipjack
9.18.7. National security exceptions
- grep Gilmore's FOIA for mention that national security
people will have direct access and that this will not be
mentioned to the public
+ "The "National Security" exception built into the Clipper
proposal
- leaves an extraordinarily weak link in the chain of
procedures designed
- to protect user privacy. To place awesome powers of
surveillance
- technologically within the reach of a few, hoping that so
weak a chain
- will bind them, would amount to dangerous folly. It
flies in the face
- of history.
9.18.8. In my view, any focus on the details of Clipper instead of
the overall concept of key escrow plays into their hands.
This is not to say that the work of Blaze and others is
misguided....in fact, it's very fine work. But a general
focus on the _details_ of Skipjack does nothing to allay my
concerns about the _principle_ of government-mandated crypto.
If it were "house key escrow" and there were missing details
about the number of teeth allowed on the keys, would be then
all breathe a sigh of relief if the details of the teeth were
clarified? Of course not. Me, I will never use a key escrow
system, even if a blue ribbon panel of hackers and
Cypherpunks studies the design and declares it to be
cryptographically sound.
9.18.9. Concern about Clipper
- allows past communications to be read
+ authorities could--maybe--read a lot of stuff, even
illegally, then use this for other investigations (the old
"we had an anonymous tip" ploy)
- "The problem with Clipper is that it provides police
agencies with dramatically enhanced target acquistion.
There is nothing to prevent NSA, ATF, FBI (or the Special
Projects division of the Justice Department) from
reviewing all internet traffic, as long as they are
willing to forsake using it in a criminal prosecution."
[dgard@netcom.com, alt.privacy.clipper, 1994-07-05]
9.18.10. Some wags have suggested that the new escrow agencies be
chosen from groups like Amnesty International and the ACLU.
Most of us are opposed to the "very idea" of key escrow
(think of being told to escrow family photos, diaries, or
house keys) and hence even these kinds of skeptical groups
are unacceptable as escrow agents.
9.19. Loose Ends
9.19.1. "Are trapdoors--or some form of escrowed encryption--
justified in some cases?"
+ Sure. There are various reasons why individuals, companies,
etc. may want to use crypto protocols that allow them to
decrypt even if they've lost their key, perhaps by going to
their lawyer and getting the sealed envelope they left with
him, etc.
- or using a form of "software key escrow" that allows them
access
+ Corporations that wish to recover encrypted data
+ several scenarios
- employee encrypts important files, then dies or is
otherwise unavailable
+ employee leaves company before decrypting all files
- some may be archived and not needed to be opened for
many years
- employee may demand "ransom" (closely related to virus
extortion cases)
- files are found but the original encryptor is unknown
+ Likely situation is that encryption algorithms will be
mandated by corporation, with a "master key" kept available
- like a trapdoor
- the existence of the master key may not even be
publicized within the company (to head off concerns about
security, abuses, etc.)
- The mandatory use of key escrow, a la a mandatory Clipper
system, or the system many of us believe is being developed
for software key escrow (SKE, also called "GAK," for
"government access to keys, by Carl Ellison) is completely
different, and is unacceptable. (Clipper is discussed in
many places here.)
9.19.2. DSS
+ Continuing confusion over patents, standards, licensing,
etc.
- "FIPS186 is DSS. NIST is of the opinion that DSS does not
violate PKP's patents. PKP (or at least Jim Bidzos) takes
the position that it does. But for various reasons, PKP
won't sue the government. But Bidzos threatens to sue
private parties who infringe. Stay tuned...." [Steve
Wildstrom, sci.crypt, 1994-08-19]
- even Taher ElGamal believes it's a weak standard
- subliminal channels issues
9.19.3. The U.S. is often hypocritical about basic rights
- plans to "disarm" the Haitians, as we did to the Somalians
(which made those we disarmed even more vulnerable to the
local warlords)
- government officials are proposing to "silence" a radio
station in Ruanda they feel is sending out the wrong
message! (Heard on "McNeil-Lehrer News Hour," 1994-07-21]
9.19.4. "is-a-person" and RSA-style credentials
+ a dangerous idea, that government will insist that keys be
linked to persons, with only one per person
- this is a flaw in AOCE system
- many apps need new keys generated many times
10. Legal Issues
10.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
10.2. SUMMARY: Legal Issues
10.2.1. Main Points
10.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
- Sad to say, but legal considerations impinge on nearly
every aspect of crypto
10.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
10.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
- "I'm a scientist, Jim, not an attorney." Hence, take my
legal comments here with a grain of salt, representing only
hints of the truth as I picked them up from the discussions
on the various forums and lists.
10.3. Basic Legality of Encryption
10.3.1. "Is this stuff legal or illegal?"
- Certainly the _talking_ about it is mostly legal, at least
in the U.S. and at the time of this writing. In other
countries, you prison term may vary.
+ The actions resulting from crypto, and crypto anarchy, may
well be illegal. Such is often the case when technology is
applied without any particular regard for what the laws say
is permitted. (Pandora's Box and all that.)
- Cypherpunks really don't care much about such ephemera as
the "laws" of some geographic region. Cypherpunks make
their own laws.
+ There are two broad ways of getting things done:
- First, looking at the law and regulations and finding
ways to exploit them. This is the tack favored by
lawyers, of whic$are many in this country.
- Second, "just do it." In areas where the law hasn't
caught up, this can mean unconstrained technological
developement. Good examples are the computer and chip
business, where issues of legality rarely arose (except
in the usual areas of contract enforcement, etc.). More
recently the chip business has discovered lawyering, with
a vengeance.
- In other areas, where the law is centrally involved,
"just do it" can mean many technical violations of the
law. Examples: personal service jobs (maids and
babysitters), contracting jobs without licenses,
permissions, etc., and so on. Often these are "illegal
markets," putatively.
- And bear in mind that the legal system can be used to
hassle people, to pressure them to "plead out" to some
charges, to back off, etc. (In the firearms business, the
pressures and threats are also used to cause some
manufacturers, like Ruger, to back off on a radical pro-gun
stance, so as to be granted favors and milder treatment.
Pressure on crypto-producing companies are probably very
similar. Play ball, or we'll run you over in the parking
lot.)
10.3.2. "Why is the legal status of crypto so murky?"
- First, it may be murkier to me than it it to actual lawyers
like Mike Godwin and Michael Froomkin, both of whom have
been on our list at times. (Though my impression from
talking to Godwin is that many or even most of these issues
have not been addressed in the courts, let alone resolved
definitively.)
- Second, crypto issues have not generally reached the
courts, reflecting the nascent status of most of the things
talked about it here. Things as "trivial" as digital
signatures and digital timestamping have yet to be
challenged in courts, or declared illegal, or anything
similar that might produce a precedent-setting ruling. (Stu
Haber agrees that such tests are lacking.)
- Finally, the issues are deep ones, going to the heart of
issues of self-incrimination (disclosure of keys,
contempt), of intellectual property and export laws (want
to jail someone for talking about prime numbers?), and the
incredibly byzantine world of money and financial
instruments.
- A legal study of crypto--which I hear Professor Froomkin is
doing--could be very important.
10.3.3. "Has the basic legality of crypto and laws about crypto been
tested?"
- As usual, a U.S. focus here. I know little of the situation
in non-U.S. countries (and in many of them the law is
whatever the rulers say it is).
- And I'm not a lawyer.
+ Some facts:
- no direct Constitutional statement about privacy (though
many feel it is implied)
- crypto was not a major issue (espionage was, and was
dealt with harshly, but encrypting things was not a
problem per se)
+ only in the recent past has it become important...and it
will become much more so
- as criminals encrypt, as terrorists encrypt
- as tax is avoided via the techniques described here
- collusion of business ("crypto interlocking
directorates," price signalling)
- black markets, information markets
+ Lawrence Tribe..new amendment
- scary, as it may place limits.... (but unlikely to
happen)
+ Crypto in Court
- mostly untested
- can keys be compelled?
- Expect some important cases in the next several years
10.3.4. "Can authorities force the disclosure of a key?"
+ Mike Godwin, legal counsel for the EFF, has been asked this
queston _many_ times:
- "Note that a court could cite you for contempt for not
complying with a subpoena duces tecum (a subpoena
requiring you to produce objects or documents) if you
fail to turn over subpoenaed backups....To be honest, I
don't think *any* security measure is adequate against a
government that's determined to overreach its authority
and its citizens' rights, but crypto comes close." [Mike
Godwin, 1993-06-14]
+ Torture is out (in many countries, but not all). Truth
serum, etc., ditto.
- "Rubber hose cryptography"
+ Constitutional issues
- self-incrimination
+ on the "Yes" side:
+ is same, some say, as forcing combination to a safe
containing information or stolen goods
- but some say-and a court may have ruled on this-that
the safe can always be cut open and so the issue is
mostly moot
- while forcing key disclosure is compelled testimony
- and one can always claim to have forgotten the key
- i.e., what happens when a suspect simply clams up?
- but authorities can routinely demand cooperation in
investigations, can seize records, etc.
+ on the "No" side:
- can't force a suspect to talk, whether about where he hid
the loot or where his kidnap victim is hidden
- practically speaking, someone under indictment cannot be
forced to reveal Swiss bank accounts....this would seem
to be directly analogous to a cryptographic key
- thus, the key to open an account would seem to be the
same thing
- a memorized key cannot be forced, says someone with EFF
or CPSR
+ "Safe" analogy
+ You have a safe, you won' tell the combination
- you just refuse
- you claim to have forgotten it
- you really don't know it
- cops can cut the safe open, so compelling a combination
is not needed
- "interefering with an investigation"
- on balance, it seems clear that the disclosure of
cryptographic keys cannot be forced (though the practical
penalty for nondisclosure could be severe)
+ Courts
+ compelled testimony is certainly common
- if one is not charged, one cannot take the 5th (may be
some wrinkles here)
- contempt
+ What won't immunize disclosure:
+ clever jokes about "I am guilty of money laundering"
- can it be used?
- does judge declaring immunity apply in this case?
- Eric Hughes has pointed out that the form of the
statement is key: "My key is: "I am a murderer."" is
not a legal admission of anything.
- (There may be some subtleties where the key does contain
important evidence--perhaps the location of a buried body-
-but I think these issues are relatively minor.)
- but this has not really been tested, so far as I know
- and many people say that such cooperation can be
demanded...
- Contempt, claims of forgetting
10.3.5. Forgetting passwords, and testimony
+ This is another area of intense speculation:
- "I forgot. So sue me."
- "I forgot. It was just a temporary file I was working on,
and I just can't remember the password I picked." (A less
in-your-face approach.)
+ "I refuse to give my password on the grounds that it may
tend to incriminate me."
+ Canonical example: "My password is: 'I sell illegal
drugs.'"
- Eric Hughes has pointed out this is not a real
admission of guilt, just a syntactic form, so it is
nonsense to claim that it is incriminating. I agree.
I don't know if any court tests have confirmed this.
+ Sandy Sandfort theorizes that this example might work, or
at least lead to an interesting legal dilemma:
- "As an example, your passphrase could be:
I shot a cop in the back and buried his body
under
the porch at 123 Main St., anywhere USA. The gun
is
wrapped in an oily cloth in my mother's attic.
"I decline to answer on the grounds that my passphrase is
a statement which may tend to incriminate me. I will
only give my passphrase if I am given immunity from
prosecution for the actions to which it alludes."
"Too cute, I know, but who knows, it might work." [S.S.,
1994-0727]
10.3.6. "What about disavowal of keys? Of digital signatures? Of
contracts?
- In the short term, the courts are relatively silent, as few
of these issues have reached the courts. Things like
signatures and contract breaches would likely be handled as
they currently are (that is, the judge would look at the
circumstances, etc.)
+ Clearly this is a major concern. There are two main avenues
of dealing with this"
- The "purist" approach. You *are* your key. Caveat emptor.
Guard your keys. If your signature is used, you are
responsible. (People can lessen their exposure by using
protocols that limit risk, analogous to the way ATM
systems only allow, say, $200 a day to be withdrawn.)
- The legal system can be used (maybe) to deal with these
issues. Maybe. Little of this has been tested in courts.
Conventional methods of verifying forged signatures will
not work. Contract law with digital signatures will be a
new area.
- The problem of *repudiation* or *disavowal* was recognized
early on in cryptologic circles. Alice is confronted with a
digital signature, or whatever. She says; "But I didn't
sign that" or "Oh, that's my old key--it's obsolete" or "My
sysadmin must have snooped through my files," or "I guess
those key escrow guys are at it again."
- I think that only the purist stance will hold water in the
long run.(A hint of this: untraceable cash means, for most
transactions of interest with digital cash, that once the
crypto stuff has been handled, whether the sig was stolen
or not is moot, because the money is gone...no court can
rule that the sig was invalid and then retrieve the cash!)
10.3.7. "What are some arguments for the freedom to encrypt?"
- bans are hard to enforce, requiring extensive police
intrusions
- private letters, diaries, conversations
- in U.S., various provisions
- anonymity is often needed
10.3.8. Restrictions on anonymity
- "identity escrow" is what Eric Hughes calls it
- linits on mail drops, on anonymous accounts, and--perhaps
ultimately--on cash purchases of any and all goods
10.3.9. "Are bulletin boards and Internet providers "common carriers"
or not?"
- Not clear. BBS operators are clearly held more liable for
content than the phone company is, for example.
10.3.10. Too much cleverness is passing for law
- Many schemes to bypass tax laws, regulations, etc., are, as
the British like to say, "too cute by half." For example,
claims that the dollar is defined as 1/35th of an ounce of
gold and that the modern dollar is only 1/10th of this. Or
that Ohio failed to properly enter the Union, and hence all
laws passed afterward are invalid. The same could be said
of schemes to deploy digital cash be claiming that ordinary
laws do not apply. Well, those who try such schemes often
find out otherwise, sometimes in prison. Tread carefully.
10.3.11. "Is it legal to advocate the overthrow of governments or the
breaking of laws?"
- Although many Cypherpunks are not radicals, many others of
us are, and we often advocate "collapse of governments" and
other such things as money laundering schemes, tax evasion,
new methods for espionage, information markets, data
havens, etc. This rasises obvious concerns about legality.
- First off, I have to speak mainly of U.S. issues...the laws
of Russia or Japan or whatever may be completely different.
Sorry for the U.S.-centric focus of this FAQ, but that's
the way it is. The Net started here, and still is
dominantly here, and the laws of the U.S. are being
propagated around the world as part of the New World Order
and the collapse of the other superpower.
- Is it legal to advocate the replacement of a government? In
the U.S., it's the basic political process (though cynics
might argue that both parties represent the same governing
philosophy). Advocating the *violent overthrow* of the U.S.
government is apparently illegal, though I lack a cite on
this.
+ Is it legal to advocate illegal acts in general? Certainly
much of free speech is precisely this: arguing for drug
use, for boycotts, etc.
+ The EFF gopher site has this on "Advocating Lawbreaking,
Brandenburg v. Ohio. ":
- "In the 1969 case of Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme
Court struck down the conviction of a Ku Klux Klan
member under a criminal syndicalism law and established
a new standard: Speech may not be suppressed or
punished unless it is intended to produce 'imminent
lawless action' and it is 'likely to produce such
action.' Otherwise, the First Amendment protects even
speech that advocates violence. The Brandenburg test is
the law today. "
10.4. Can Crypto be Banned?
10.4.1. "Why won't government simply _ban such encryption methods?"
+ This has always been the Number One Issue!
- raised by Stiegler, Drexler, Salin, and several others
(and in fact raised by some as an objection to my even
discussing these issues, namely, that action may then be
taken to head off the world I describe)
+ Types of Bans on Encryption and Secrecy
- Ban on Private Use of Encryption
- Ban on Store-and-Forward Nodes
- Ban on Tokens and ZKIPS Authentication
- Requirement for public disclosure of all transactions
+ Recent news (3-6-92, same day as Michaelangelo and
Lawnmower Man) that government is proposing a surcharge
on telcos and long distance services to pay for new
equipment needed to tap phones!
- S.266 and related bills
- this was argued in terms of stopping drug dealers and
other criminals
- but how does the government intend to deal with the
various forms fo end-user encryption or "confusion"
(the confusion that will come from compression,
packetizing, simple file encryption, etc.)
+ Types of Arguments Against Such Bans
- The "Constitutional Rights" Arguments
+ The "It's Too Late" Arguments
- PCs are already widely scattered, running dozens of
compression and encryption programs...it is far too
late to insist on "in the clear" broadcasts, whatever
those may be (is program code distinguishable from
encrypted messages? No.)
- encrypted faxes, modem scramblers (albeit with some
restrictions)
- wireless LANs, packets, radio, IR, compressed text and
images, etc....all will defeat any efforts short of
police state intervention (which may still happen)
+ The "Feud Within the NSA" Arguments
- COMSEC vs. PROD
+ Will affect the privacy rights of corporations
- and there is much evidence that corporations are in
fact being spied upon, by foreign governments, by the
NSA, etc.
+ They Will Try to Ban Such Encryption Techniques
+ Stings (perhaps using viruses and logic bombs)
- or "barium," to trace the code
+ Legal liability for companies that allow employees to use
such methods
- perhaps even in their own time, via the assumption that
employees who use illegal software methods in their own
time are perhaps couriers or agents for their
corporations (a tenuous point)
10.4.2. The long-range impossibility of banning crypto
- stego
- direct broadcast to overhead satellites
- samizdat
- compression, algorithms, ....all made plaintext hard to
find
10.4.3. Banning crypto is comparable to
+ banning ski masks because criminals can hide their identity
- Note: yes, there are laws about "going masked for the
purpose of being masked," or somesuch
+ insisting that all speech be in languages understandable by
eavesdroppers
- (I don't mean "official languages" for dealing with the
Feds, or what employers may reasonably insist on)
- outlawing curtains, or at least requiring that "Clipper
curtains" be bought (curtains which are transparent at
wavelengths the governments of the world can use)
- position escrow, via electronic bracelets like criminals
wear
- restrictions on books that possibly help criminals
- banning body armor (proposed in several communities)
- banning radar detectors
- (Note that these bans become more "reasonable" when the
items like body armor and radar detectos are reached, at
least to many people. Not to me, of course.)
10.4.4. So Won't Governments Stop These Systems?
- Citing national security, protection of private property,
common decency, etc.
+ Legal Measures
- Bans on ownership and operation of "anonymous" systems
+ Restrictions on cryptographic algorithms
- RSA patent may be a start
+ RICO, civil suits, money-laundering laws
- FINCEN, Financial Crimes Information Center
- IRS, Justice, NSA, FBI, DIA, CIA
- attempts to force other countries to comply with U.S.
banking laws
10.4.5. Scenario for a ban on encryption
- "Paranoia is cryptography's occupational hazard." [Eric
Hughes, 1994-05-14]
+ There are many scenarios. Here is a graphic one from Sandy
Sandfort:
- "Remember the instructions for cooking a live frog. The
government does not intend to stop until they have
effectively eliminated your privacy.
STEP 1: Clipper becomes the de facto encryption
standard.
STEP 2: When Cypherpunks and other "criminals" eschew
Clipper in favor of trusted strong crypto, the government
is "forced" to ban non-escrowed encryption systems.
(Gotta catch those pedophiles, drug dealers and
terrorists, after all.)
STEP 3: When Cypherpunks and other criminals use
superencryption with Clipper or spoof LEAFs, the
government will regretably be forced to engage in random
message monitoring to detect these illegal techniques.
Each of these steps will be taken because we wouldn't
passively accept such things as unrestricted wiretaps and
reasonable precautions like
digital telephony. It will portrayed as our fault.
Count on it." [Sandy Sandfort, 6-14-94]
10.4.6. Can the flow of bits be stopped? Is the genie really out of
the bottle?
- Note that Carl Ellison has long argued that the genie was
never _in_ the bottle, at least not in the U.S. in non-
wartime situations (use of cryptography, especially in
communications, in wartime obviously raises eyebrows)
10.5. Legal Issues with PGP
7.12.1. "What is RSA Data Security Inc.'s position on PGP?"
I. They were strongly opposed to early versions
II. objections
- infringes on PKP patents (claimed infringements, not
tested in court, though)
- breaks the tight control previously seen
- brings unwanted attention to public key approaches (I
think PGP also helped RSA and RSADSI)
- bad blood between Zimmermann and Bidzos
III. objections
- infringes on PKP patents (claimed infringements, not
tested in court, though)
- breaks the tight control previously seen
- brings unwanted attention to public key approaches (I
think PGP also helped RSA and RSADSI)
- bad blood between Zimmermann and Bidzos
IV. Talk of lawsuits, actions, etc.
V. The 2.6 MIT accomodation may have lessened the tension;
purely speculative
7.12.2. "Is PGP legal or illegal"?
7.12.3. "Is there still a conflict between RSADSI and PRZ?"
- Apparently not. The MIT 2.6 negotiations seem to have
buried all such rancor. At least officially. I hear there's
still animosity, but it's no longer at the surface. (And
RSADSI is now facing lawsuits and patent suits.)
10.6. Legal Issues with Remailers
8.9.1. What's the legal status of remailers?
- There are no laws against it at this time.
- No laws saying people have to put return addresses on
messages, on phone calls (pay phones are still legal), etc.
- And the laws pertaining to not having to produce identity
(the "flier" case, where leaflet distributors did not have
to produce ID) would seem to apply to this form of
communication.
+ However, remailers may come under fire:
+ Sysops, MIT case
- potentially serious for remailers if the case is
decided such that the sysop's creation of group that
was conducive to criminal pirating was itself a
crime...that could make all involved in remailers
culpable
8.9.2. "Can remailer logs be subpoenaed?"
- Count on it happening, perhaps very soon. The FBI has been
subpoenaing e-mail archives for a Netcom customer (Lewis De
Payne), probably because they think the e-mail will lead
them to the location of uber-hacker Kevin Mitnick. Had the
parties used remailers, I'm fairly sure we'd be seeing
similar subpoenas for the remailer logs.
- There's no exemption for remailers that I know of!
+ The solutions are obvious, though:
- use many remailers, to make subpoenaing back through the
chain very laborious, very expensive, and likely to fail
(if even one party won't cooperate, or is outside the
court's jurisdiction, etc.)
- offshore, multi-jurisdictional remailers (seleted by the
user)
- no remailer logs kept...destroy them (no law currently
says anybody has to keep e-mail records! This may
change....)
- "forward secrecy," a la Diffie-Hellman forward secrecy
8.9.3. How will remailers be harassed, attacked, and challenged?
8.9.4. "Can pressure be put on remailer operators to reveal traffic
logs and thereby allow tracing of messages?"
+ For human-operated systems which have logs, sure. This is
why we want several things in remailers:
* no logs of messages
* many remailers
* multiple legal jurisdictions, e.g., offshore remailers
(the more the better)
* hardware implementations which execute instructions
flawlessly (Chaum's digital mix)
8.9.5. Calls for limits on anonymity
+ Kids and the net will cause many to call for limits on
nets, on anonymity, etc.
- "But there's a dark side to this exciting phenomenon, one
that's too rarely understood by computer novices.
Because they
offer instant access to others, and considerable
anonymity to
participants, the services make it possible for people -
especially computer-literate kids - to find themselves in
unpleasant, sexually explicit social situations.... And
I've gradually
come to adopt the view, which will be controversial among
many online
users, that the use of nicknames and other forms of
anonymity
must be eliminated or severly curbed to force people
online into
at least as much accountability for their words and
actions as
exists in real social encounters." [Walter S. Mossberg,
Wall Street Journal, 6/30/94, provided by Brad Dolan]
- Eli Brandt came up with a good response to this: "The
sound-bite response to this: do you want your child's
name, home address, and phone number available to all
those lurking pedophiles worldwide? Responsible parents
encourage their children to use remailers."
- Supreme Court said that identity of handbill distributors
need not be disclosed, and pseudonyms in general has a long
and noble tradition
- BBS operators have First Amendment protections (e.g..
registration requirements would be tossed out, exactly as
if registration of newspapers were to be attempted)
8.9.6. Remailers and Choice of Jurisdictions
- The intended target of a remailed message, and the subject
material, may well influence the set of remailers used,
especially for the very important "last remailer' (Note: it
should never be necessary to tell remailers if they are
first, last, or others, but the last remailer may in fact
be able to tell he's the last...if the message is in
plaintext to the recipient, with no additional remailer
commands embedded, for example.)
- A message involving child pornography might have a remailer
site located in a state like Denmark, where child porn laws
are less restrictive. And a message critical of Islam might
not be best sent through a final remailer in Teheran. Eric
Hughes has dubbed this "regulatory arbitrage," and to
various extents it is already common practice.
- Of course, the sender picks the remailer chain, so these
common sense notions may not be followed. Nothing is
perfect, and customs will evolve. I can imagine schemes
developing for choosing customers--a remailer might not
accept as a customer certain abusers, based on digital
pseudonyms < hairy).
8.9.7. Possible legal steps to limit the use of remailers and
anonymous systems
- hold the remailer liable for content, i.e., no common
carrier status
- insert provisions into the various "anti-hacking" laws to
criminalize anonymous posts
8.9.8. Crypto and remailers can be used to protect groups from "deep
pockets" lawsuits
- products (esp. software) can be sold "as is," or with
contracts backed up by escrow services (code kept in an
escrow repository, or money kept there to back up
committments)
+ jurisdictions, legal and tax, cannot do "reach backs" which
expose the groups to more than they agreed to
- as is so often the case with corporations in the real
world, which are taxed and fined for various purposes
(asbestos, etc.)
- (For those who panic at the thought of this, the remedy for
the cautious will be to arrange contracts with the right
entities...probably paying more for less product.)
8.9.9. Could anonymous remailers be used to entrap people, or to
gather information for investigations?
- First, there are so few current remailers that this is
unlikely. Julf seems a non-narc type, and he is located in
Finland. The Cypherpunks remailers are mostly run by folks
like us, for now.
- However, such stings and set-ups have been used in the past
by narcs and "red squads." Expect the worse from Mr.
Policeman. Now that evil hackers are identified as hazards,
expect moves in this direction. "Cryps" are obviously
"crack" dealers.
- But use of encryption, which CP remailers support (Julf's
does not), makes this essentially moot.
10.7. Legal Issues with Escrowed Encryption and Clipper
9.17.1. As John Gilmore put it in a guest editorial in the "San
Francisco Examiner," "...we want the public to see a serious
debate about why the Constitution should be burned in order
to save the country." [J.G., 1994-06-26, quoted by S.
Sandfort]
9.17.2. "I don't see how Clipper gives the government any powers or
capabilities it doesn't already have. Comments?"
9.17.3. Is Clipper really voluntary?
9.17.4. If Clipper is voluntary, who will use it?
9.17.5. Restrictions on Civilian Use of Crypto
9.17.6. "Has crypto been restricted in the U.S.?"
9.17.7. "What legal steps are being taken?"
- Zimmermann
- ITAR
9.17.8. reports that Department of Justice has a compliance
enforcement role in the EES [heard by someone from Dorothy
Denning, 1994-07], probably involving checking the law
enforcement agencies...
9.17.9. Status
+ "Will government agencies use Clipper?"
- Ah, the embarrassing question. They claim they will, but
there are also reports that sensitive agencies will not
use it, that Clipper is too insecure for them (key
lenght, compromise of escrow data, etc.). There may also
be different procedures (all agencies are equal, but some
are more equal than others).
- Clipper is rated for unclassified use, so this rules out
many agencies and many uses. An interesting double
standard.
+ "Is the Administration backing away from Clipper?"
+ industry opposition surprised them
- groups last summer, Citicorp, etc.
- public opinion
- editorial remarks
- so they may be preparing alternative
- and Gilmore's FOIA, Blaze's attack, the Denning
nonreview, the secrecy of the algortithm
+ will not work
- spies won't use it, child pornographers probably won't
use it (if alternatives exist, which may be the whole
point)
- terrorists won't use it
- Is Clipper in trouble?
9.17.10. "Will Clipper be voluntary?"
- Many supporters of Clipper have cited the voluntary nature
of Clipper--as expressed in some policy statements--and
have used this to counter criticism.
+ However, even if truly voluntary, some issues
+ improper role for government to try to create a
commercial standard
- though the NIST role can be used to counter this point,
partly
- government can and does make it tough for competitors
- export controls (statements by officials on this exist)
+ Cites for voluntary status:
- original statement says it will be voluntary
- (need to get some statements here)
+ Cites for eventual mandatory status:
- "Without this initiative, the government will eventually
become helpless to defend the nation." [Louis Freeh,
director of the FBI, various sources]
- Steven Walker of Trusted Information Systems is one of
many who think so: "Based on his analysis, Walker added,
"I'm convinced that five years from now they'll say 'This
isn't working,' so we'll have to change the rules." Then,
he predicted, Clipper will be made mandatory for all
encoded communications." [
+ Parallels to other voluntary programs
- taxes
10.8. Legal Issues with Digital Cash
10.8.1. "What's the legal status of digital cash?"
- It hasn't been tested, like a lot of crypto protocols. It
may be many years before these systems are tested.
10.8.2. "Is there a tie between digital cash and money laundering?"
- There doesn't have to be, but many of us believe the
widespread deployment of digital, untraceable cash will
make possible new approaches
- Hence the importance of digital cash for crypto anarchy and
related ideas.
- (In case it isn't obvious, I consider money-laundering a
non-crime.)
10.8.3. "Is it true the government of the U.S. can limit funds
transfers outside the U.S.?"
- Many issues here. Certainly some laws exist. Certainly
people are prosecuted every day for violating currency
export laws. Many avenues exist.
- "LEGALITY - There isn't and will never be a law restricting
the sending of funds outside the United States. How do I
know? Simple. As a country dependant on international
trade (billions of dollars a year and counting), the
American economy would be destroyed." [David Johnson,
privacy@well.sf.ca.us, "Offshore Banking & Privacy,"
alt.privacy, 1994-07-05]
10.8.4. "Are "alternative currencies" allowed in the U.S.? And what's
the implication for digital cash of various forms?
- Tokens, coupons, gift certificates are allowed, but face
various regulations. Casino chips were once treated as
cash, but are now more regulated (inter-casino conversion
is no longer allowed).
- Any attempt to use such coupons as an alternative currency
face obstacles. The coupons may be allowed, but heavily
regulated (reporting requirements, etc.).
- Perry Metzger notes, bearer bonds are now illegal in the
U.S. (a bearer bond represented cash, in that no name was
attached to the bond--the "bearer" could sell it for cash
or redeem it...worked great for transporting large amounts
of cash in compact form).
+ Note: Duncan Frissell claims that bearer bonds are _not_
illegal.
- "Under the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of
1982 (TEFRA), any interest payments made on *new* issues
of domestic bearer bonds are not deductible as an
ordinary and necessary business expense so none have been
issued since then. At the same time, the Feds
administratively stopped issuing treasury securities in
bearer form. Old issues of government and corporate debt
in bearer form still exist and will exist and trade for
30 or more years after 1982. Additionally, US residents
can legally buy foreign bearer securities." [Duncan
Frissell, 1994-08-10]
- Someone else has a slightly different view: "The last US
Bearer Bond issues mature in 1997. I also believe that to
collect interest, and to redeem the bond at maturity, you
must give your name and tax-id number to the paying
agent. (I can check with the department here that handles
it if anyone is interested in the pertinent OCC regs that
apply)" [prig0011@gold.tc.umn.edu, 1994-08-10]
- I cite this gory detail to give readers some idea about
how much confusion there is about these subjects. The
usual advice is to "seek competent counsel," but in fact
most lawyers have no clear ideas about the optimum
strategies, and the run-of-the-mill advisor may mislead
one dangerously. Tread carefully.
- This has implications for digital cash, of course.
10.8.5. "Why might digital cash and related techologies take hold
early in illegal markets? That is, will the Mob be an early
adopter?"
- untraceability needed
- and reputations matter to them
- they've shown in the past that they will try new
approaches, a la the money movements of the drug cartels,
novel methods for security, etc.
10.8.6. "Electronic cash...will it have to comply with laws, and
how?"
- Concerns will be raised about the anonymity aspects, the
usefulness for evading taxes and reporting requirements,
etc.
- a messy issue, sure to be debated and legislated about for
many years
+ split the cash into many pieces...is this "structuring"? is
it legal?
- some rules indicate the structuring per se is not
illegal, only tax evasion or currency control evasion
- what then of systems which _automatically_, as a basic
feature, split the cash up into multiple pieces and move
them?
10.8.7. Currency controls, flight capital regulations, boycotts,
asset seizures, etc.
- all are pressures to find alternate ways for capital to
flow
- all add to the lack of confidence, which, paradoxically to
lawmakers, makes capital flight all the more likely
10.8.8. "Will banking regulators allow digital cash?"
- Not easily, that's for sure. The maze of regulations,
restrictions, tax laws, and legal rulings is daunting. Eric
Hughes spent a lot of time reading up on the laws regarding
banks, commercial paper, taxes, etc., and concluded much
the same. I'm not saying it's impossible--indeed, I believe
it will someday happen, in some form--but the obstacles are
formidable.
+ Some issues:
+ Will such an operation be allowed to be centered or based
in the U.S.?
- What states? What laws? Bank vs. Savings and Loan vs.
Credit Union vs. Securities Broker vs. something else?
+ Will customers be able to access such entities offshore,
outside the U.S.?
- strong crypto makes communication possible, but it may
be difficult, not part of the business fabric, etc.
(and hence not so useful--if one has to send PGP-
encrypted instructions to one's banker, and can't use
the clearing infrastructure....)
+ Tax collection, money-laundering laws, disclosure laws,
"know your customer" laws....all are areas where a
"digital bank" could be shut down forthwith. Any bank not
filling out the proper forms (including mandatory
reporting of transactions of certain amounts and types,
and the Social Security/Taxpayer Number of customers)
faces huge fines, penalties, and regulatory sanctions.
- and the existing players in the banking and securities
business will not sit idly by while newcomers enter
their market; they will seek to force newcomers to jump
through the same hoops they had to (studies indicate
large corporations actually _like_ red tape, as it
helps them relative to smaller companies)
- Concluson: Digital banks will not be "launched" without a
*lot* of work by lawyers, accountants, tax experts,
lobbyists, etc. "Lemonade stand digital banks" (TM) will
not survive for long. Kids, don't try this at home!
- (Many new industries we are familiar with--software,
microcomputers--had very little regulation, rightly so. But
the effect is that many of us are unprepared to understand
the massive amount of red tape which businesses in other
areas, notably banking, face.)
10.8.9. Legal obstacles to digital money. If governments don't want
anonymous cash, they can make things tough.
+ As both Perry Metzger and Eric Hughes have said many times,
regulations can make life very difficult. Compliance with
laws is a major cost of doing business.
- ~"The cost of compliance in a typical USA bank is 14% of
operating costs."~ [Eric Hughes, citing an "American
Banker" article, 1994-08-30]
+ The maze of regulations is navigable by larger
institutions, with staffs of lawyers, accountants, tax
specialists, etc., but is essentially beyond the
capabilities of very small institutions, at least in the
U.S.
- this may or may not remain the case, as computers
proliferate. A "bank-in-a-box" program might help. My
suspicion is that a certain size of staff is needed just
to handle the face-to-face meetings and hoop-jumping.
+ "New World Order"
- U.S. urging other countries to "play ball" on banking
secrecy, on tax evasion extradition, on immigration, etc.
- this is closing off the former loopholes and escape
hatches that allowed people to escape repressive
taxation...the implications for digital money banks are
unclear, but worrisome.
10.9. Legality of Digital Banks and Digital Cash?
10.9.1. In terms of banking laws, cash reporting regulations, money
laundering statutes, and the welter of laws connected with
financial transactions of all sorts, the Cypherpunks themes
and ideas are basically _illegal_. Illegal in the sense that
anyone trying to set up his own bank, or alternative currency
system, or the like would be shut down quickly. As an
informal, unnoticed _experiment_, such things are reasonably
safe...until they get noticed.
10.9.2. The operative word here is "launch," in my opinion. The
"launch" of the BankAmericard (now VISA) in the 1960s was not
done lightly or casually...it required armies of lawyers,
accountants, and other bureacrats to make the launch both
legal and successful. The mere 'idea" of a credit card was
not enough...that was essentially the easiest part of it all.
(Anyone contemplating the launch of a digital cash system
would do well to study BankAmericard as an example...and
several other examples also.)
10.9.3. The same will be true of any digital cash or similar system
which intends to operate more or less openly, to interface
with existing financial institutions, and which is not
explicity intended to be a Cypherpunkish underground
activity.
10.10. Export of Crypto, ITAR, and Similar Laws
10.10.1. "What are the laws and regulations about export of crypto,
and where can I find more information?"
- "The short answer is that the Department of State, Office
of Defense Trade Controls (DOS/DTC) and the National
Security Administration (NSA) won't allow unrestricted
export (like is being done with WinCrypt) for any
encryption program that the NSA can't crack with less than
a certain amount (that they are loathe to reveal) of
effort. For the long answer, see
ftp://ftp.csn.net/cryptusa.txt.gz and/or call DOS/DTC at
703-875-7041." [Michael Paul Johnson, sci.crypt, 1994-07-
08]
10.10.2. "Is it illegal to send encrypted stuff out of the U.S.?"
- This has come up several times, with folks claiming they've
heard this.
- In times of war, real war, sending encrypted messages may
indeed be suspect, perhaps even illegal.
- But the U.S. currently has no such laws, and many of us
send lots of encrypted stuff outside the U.S. To remailers,
to friends, etc.
- Encrypted files are often tough to distinguish from
ordinary compressed files (high entropy), so law
enforcement would have a hard time.
- However, other countries may have different laws.
10.10.3. "What's the situation about export of crypto?"
+ There's been much debate about this, with the case of Phil
Zimmermann possibly being an important test case, should
charges be filed.
- as of 1994-09, the Grand Jury in San Jose has not said
anything (it's been about 7-9 months since they started
on this issue)
- Dan Bernstein has argued that ITAR covers nearly all
aspects of exporting crypto material, including codes,
documentation, and even "knowledge." (Controversially, it
may be in violation of ITAR for knowledgeable crypto people
to even leave the country with the intention of developing
crypto tools overseas.)
- The various distributions of PGP that have occurred via
anonymous ftp sources don't imply that ITAR is not being
enforced, or won't be in the future.
10.10.4. Why and How Crypto is Not the Same as Armaments
- the gun comparison has advantages and disadvantages
- "right to keep and bear arms"
- but then this opens the door wide to restrictions,
regulations, comparisons of crypto to nuclear weapons, etc.
-
+ "Crypto is not capable of killing people directly. Crypto
consists
- entirely of information (speech, if you must) that cannot
be
- interdicted. Crypto has civilian use.
- -
- , 4-11-94, sci.crypt>
10.10.5. "What's ITAR and what does it cover?"
+ ITAR, the International Trafficking in Arms Regulations, is
the defining set of rules for export of munitions--and
crypto is treated as munitions.
- regulations for interpreting export laws
+ NSA may have doubts that ITAR would hold up in court
- Some might argue that this contravenes the Constitution,
and hence would fail in court. Again, there have been few
if any solid tests of ITAR in court, and some indications
that NSA lawyers are reluctant to see it tested, fearing
it would not pass muster.
- doubts about legality (Carl Nicolai saw papers, since
confirmed in a FOIA)
- Brooks statement
- Cantwell Bill
- not fully tested in court
+ reports of NSA worries that it wouldn't hold up in court if
ever challenged
- Carl Nicolai, later FOIA results, conversations with Phil
+ Legal Actions Surrounding ITAR
- The ITAR laws may be used to fight hackers and
Cypherpunks...the outcome of the Zimmermann indictment
will be an important sign.
+ What ITAR covers
- "ITAR 121.8(f): ``Software includes but is not limited to
the system functional design, logic flow, algorithms,
application programs, operating systems and support
software for design, implementation, test, operation,
diagnosis and repair.'' [quoted by Dan Bernstein,
talk.politics.crypto, 1994-07-14]
- joke by Bidzos about registering as an international arms
dealer
+ ITAR and code (can code be published on the Net?)
- "Why does ITAR matter?"
- Phil Karn is involved with this, as are several others
here
+ Dan Bernstein has some strongly held views, based on his
long history of fighting the ITAR
- "Let's assume that the algorithm is capable of
maintaining secrecy of information, and that it is not
restricted to decryption, banking, analog scrambling,
special smart cards, user authentication, data
authentication, data compression, or virus protection.
"The algorithm is then in USML Category XIII(b)(1).
"It is thus a defense article. ITAR 120.6. " [Dan
Bernstein, posting code to sci.crypt,
talk.politics.crypto, 1994-08-22]
- "Sending a defense article out of the United States in
any manner (except as knowledge in your head) is
export. ITAR 120.17(1).
"So posting the algorithm constitutes export. There are
other forms of export, but I won't go into them here.
"The algorithm itself, without any source code, is
software." [Dan Bernstein, posting code to sci.crypt,
talk.politics.crypto, 1994-08-22]
- "The statute is the Arms Export Control Act; the
regulations are the
International Traffic in Arms Regulations. For precise
references, see
my ``International Traffic in Arms Regulations: A
Publisher's Guide.''" [Dan Bernstein, posting code to
sci.crypt, talk.politics.crypto, 1994-08-22]
+ "Posting code is fine. We do it all the time; we have
the right to do it; no one seems to be trying to stop us
from doing it." [Bryan G. Olson, posting code to
sci.crypt, talk.politics.crypto, 1994-08-20]
- Bernstein agrees that few busts have occurred, but
warns: "Thousands of people have distributed crypto in
violation of ITAR; only two, to my knowledge, have been
convicted. On the other hand, the guv'mint is rapidly
catching up with reality, and the Phil Zimmermann case
may be the start of a serious crackdown." [Dan
Bernstein, posting code to sci.crypt,
talk.politics.crypto, 1994-08-22]
- The common view that academic freedom means one is OK is
probably not true.
+ Hal Finney neatly summarized the debate between Bernstein
and Olsen:
- "1) No one has ever been prosecuted for posting code on
sci.crypt. The Zimmermann case, if anything ever comes
of it, was not about posting code on Usenet, AFAIK.
"2) No relevant government official has publically
expressed an opinion on whether posting code on
sci.crypt would be legal. The conversations Dan
Bernstein posted dealt with his requests for permission
to export his algorithm, not to post code on sci.crypt.
"3) We don't know whether anyone will ever be
prosecuted for posting code on sci.crypt, and we don't
know what the outcome of any such prosecution would
be." [Hal Finney, talk.politics.crypto, 1994-008-30]
10.10.6. "Can ITAR and other export laws be bypassed or skirted by
doing development offshore and then _importing_ strong crypto
into the U.S.?"
- IBM is reportedly doing just this: developing strong crypto
products for OS/2 at its overseas labs, thus skirting the
export laws (which have weakened the keys to some of their
network security products to the 40 bits that are allowed).
+ Some problems:
- can't send docs and knowhow to offshore facilities (some
obvious enforcement problems, but this is how the law
reads)
- may not even be able to transfer knowledgeable people to
offshore facilities, if the chief intent is to then have
them develop crypto products offshore (some deep
Constitutional issues, I would think...some shades of how
the U.S.S.R. justified denying departure visas for
"needed" workers)
- As with so many cases invovling crypto, there are no
defining legal cases that I am aware of.
10.11. Regulatory Arbitrage
10.11.1. Jurisdictions with more favorable laws will see claimants
going there.
10.11.2. Similar to "capital flight" and "people voting with their
feet."
10.11.3. Is the flip side of "jurisdiction shopping." wherein
prosecutors shop around for a jurisdiction that will be
likelier to convict. (As with the Amateur Action BBS case,
tried in Memphis, Tennessee, not in California.)
10.12. Crypto and Pornography
10.12.1. There's been a lot of media attention given to this,
especially pedophilia (pedophilia is not the same thing as
porn, of course, but the two are often discussed in articles
about the Net). As Rishab Ghosh put it: "I think the
pedophilic possibilities of the Internet capture the
imaginations of the media -- their deepest desires, perhaps."
[R.G., 1994-07-01]
10.12.2. The fact is, the two are made for each other. The
untraceability of remailers, the unbreakability of strong
crypto if the files are intercepted by law enforcement, and
the ability to pay anonymously, all mean the early users of
commercial remailers will likely be these folks.
10.12.3. Avoid embarrassing stings! Keep your job at the elementary
school! Get re-elected to the church council!
10.12.4. pedophilia, bestiality, etc. (morphed images)
10.12.5. Amateur Action BBS operator interested in crypto....a little
bit too late
10.12.6. There are new prospects for delivery of messages as part of
stings or entrapment attacks, where the bits decrypt into
incriminating evidence when the right key is used. (XOR of
course)
10.12.7. Just as the law enforcement folks are claiming, strong crypto
and remailers will make new kinds of porn networks. The nexus
or source will not be known, and the customers will not be
known.
- (An interesting strategy: claim customers unknown, and
their local laws. Make the "pickup" the customer's
responsibility (perhaps via agents).
10.13. Usenet, Libel, Local Laws, Jurisdictions, etc.
10.13.1. (Of peripheral importance to crypto themes, but important for
issues of coming legislation about the Net, attempts to
"regain control," etc. And a bit of a jumble of ideas, too.)
10.13.2. Many countries, many laws. Much of Usenet traffic presumably
violates various laws in Iran, China, France, Zaire, and the
U.S., to name f ew places which have laws about what thoughts
can be expressed.
10.13.3. Will this ever result in attempts to shut down Usenet, or at
least the feeds into various countries?
10.13.4. On the subject of Usenet possibly being shut-down in the U.K.
(a recent rumor, unsubstantiated), this comment: " What you
have to grasp is that USENET type networks and the whole
structure of the law on publshing are fundamentally
incompatiable. With USENT anyone can untracably distribute
pornographic, libelous, blasphemous, copyright or even
officially secret information. Now, which do you think HMG
and, for that matter, the overwhealming majority of oridnary
people in this country think is most important. USENET or
those laws?" [Malcolm McMahon, malcolm@geog.leeds.ac.uk,
comp.org.eff.talk, 1994--08-26]
10.13.5. Will it succeed? Not completely, as e-mail, gopher, the Web,
etc., still offers access. But the effects could reach most
casual users, and certainly affect the structure as we know
it today.
10.13.6. Will crypto help? Not directly--see above.
10.14. Emergency Regulations
10.14.1. Emergency Orders
- various NSDDs and the like
- "Seven Days in May" scenario
10.14.2. Legal, secrecy orders
- George Davida, U. oif Wisconsin, received letter in 1978
threatening a $10K per day fine
- Carl Nicolai, PhasorPhone
- The NSA has confirmed that parts of the EES are patented,
in secrecy, and that the patents will be made public and
then used to stop competitors should the algorithm become
known.
10.14.3. Can the FCC-type Requirements for "In the clear" broadcasting
(or keys supplied to Feds) be a basis for similar legislation
of private networks and private use of encryption?
- this would seem to be impractical, given the growth of
cellular phones, wireless LANs, etc....can't very well
mandate that corporations broadcast their internal
communications in the clear!
- compression, packet-switching, and all kinds of other
"distortions" of the data...requiring transmissions to be
readable by government agencies would require providing the
government with maps (of where the packets are going), with
specific decompression algorithms, etc....very impractical
10.15. Patents and Copyrights
10.15.1. The web of patents
- what happens is that everyone doing anything substantive
spends much of his time and money seeking patents
- patents are essential bargaining chips in dealing with
others
- e.g., DSS, Schnorr, RSADSI, etc.
- e.g., Stefan Brands is seeking patents
- Cylink suing...
10.15.2. Role of RSA, Patents, etc.
+ Bidzos: "If you make money off RSA, we make money" is the
simple rule
- but of course it goes beyond this, as even "free" uses
may have to pay
- Overlapping patents being used (apparently) to extent the
life of the portfolio
+ 4/28/97 The first of several P-K and RSA patents expires
+ U.S. Patent Number: 4200770
- Title: Cryptographic Apparatus and Method
- Inventors: Hellman, Diffie, Merkle
- Assignee: Stanford University
- Filed: September 6, 1977
- Granted: April 29, 1980
- [Expires: April 28, 1997]
+ remember that any one of these several patents held by
Public Key Partners (Stanford and M.I.T., with RSA Data
Security the chief dispenser of licenses) can block an
effort to bypass the others
- though this may get fought out in court
+ 8/18/97 The second of several P-K and RSA patents expires
+ U.S. Patent Number: 4218582
- Title: Public Key Cryptographic Apparatus and Method
- Inventors: Hellman, Merkle
- Assignee: The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford
Junior University
- Filed: October 6, 1977
- Granted: August 19, 1980
- [Expires: August 18, 1997]
- this may be disputed because it describe algortihms in
broad terms and used the knapsack algorithm as the chief
example
+ 9/19/00 The main RSA patent expires
+ U.S. Patent Number: 4405829
- Title: Cryptographic Communications System and Method
- Inventors: Rivest, Shamir, Adleman
- Assignee: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Filed: December 14, 1977
- Granted: September 20, 1983
- [Expires: September 19, 2000]
10.15.3. Lawsuits against RSA patents
+ several are brewing
- Cylink is suing (strange rumors that NSA was involved)
- Roger Schlafly
10.15.4. "What about the lawsuit filed by Cylink against RSA Data
Security Inc.?"
- Very curious, considering they are both part of Public Key
Partners, the consortium of Stanford, MIT, Cylink, and RSA
Data Security Inc. (RSADSI)
- the suit was filed in the summer of 1994
+ One odd rumor I heard, from a reputable source, was that
the NSA had asked PKP to do something (?) and that Cylink
had agreed, but RSADSI had refused, helping to push the
suit along
- any links with the death threats against Bidzos?
10.15.5. "Can the patent system be used to block government use of
patents for purposes we don't like?"
- Comes up especially in the context of S. Micali's patent on
escrow techniques
- "Wouldn't matter. The government can't be enjoined from
using a patent. The federal government, in the final
analysis, can use any patent they want, without permission,
and the only recourse of the patent owner is to sue for
royalties in the Court of Claims." [Bill Larkins,
talk.politics.crypto, 1994-07-14]
10.16. Practical Issues
10.16.1. "What if I tell the authorities I Forgot My Password?"
- (or key, or passphrase...you get the idea)
- This comes up repeatedly, but the answer remains murky
10.16.2. Civil vs. Criminal
+ "This is a civil mattep, and the pights of ppivaay one haq
in cpiminal mattepq
- tend to vaniqh in aivil litigation. The paptieq to a
lawquit hate
- tpemeldouq powepq to dopae the othep qide to peteal
ildopmatiol peletalt
- to the aaqe, , a precedence?," sci.crypt, 1994-08-15]
- Now this example comes from Britain, where the
intelligence community has always had more lattitude than
in the U.S. (an Official Secrets Act, limits on the
press, no pesky Constitution to get in the way, and even
more of an old boy's network than we have in the U.S.
mil-industrial complex).
- And the threat by NSA officials to have Jim Bidzos, the
president of RSA Data Security, Inc., killed if he didn't
play ball. {"The Keys to the Kingdom," San Jose Mercury
News]
10.21.18. "identity escrow", Eric Hughes, for restrictions on e-mail
accounts and electronic PO boxes (has been talked about,
apparently...no details)
11. Surveillance, Privacy, And Intelligence Agencies
11.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
11.2. SUMMARY: Surveillance, Privacy, And Intelligence Agencies
11.2.1. Main Points
11.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
11.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
- Bamford ("The Puzzle Palace"), Richelson (several books,
including "U.S. Intelligence Agencies"), Burrows ("Deep
Black," about the NRO and spy satellites), Covert Action
Quarterly
11.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
11.3. Surveillance and Privacy
11.3.1. We've come a long way from Secretary of State Stimpson's
famous "Gentlemen do not read other gentlemen's mail"
statement. It is now widely taken for granted that Americans
are to be monitored, surveilled, and even wiretapped by the
various intelligence agencies. The FBI, the National Security
Agency, the CIA, the National Reconnaissance Office, etc.
(Yes, these groups have various charters telling them who
they can spy on, what legalities they have to meet, etc. But
they still spy. And there's not an uproar--the "What have you
got to hide?" side of the American privacy dichotomy.)
11.3.2. Duncan Frissell reminds us of Justice Jackson's 1948
dissenting opinion in some case:
- "The government could simplify criminal law enforcement by
requiring every citizen "to keep a diary that would show
where he was at all times, with whom he was, and what he
was up to." [D.F. 1994-09-06, from an article in the WSJ]
- (It should be noted that tracking devices--collars,
bracelets, implantable transmitters--exist and are in use
with prisoners. Some parents are even installing them in
children, it is rumored. A worry for the future?)
11.3.3. "What is the "surveillance state"?"
- the issue with crypto is the _centralization_ of
eavesdropping...much easier than planting bugs
+ "Should some freedom be given up for security?"
+ "Those who are willing to trade freedom for security
- deserve neither
+ freedom nor security
- Ben Franklin
- the tradeoff is often illusory--police states result when
the trains are made to run on time
- "It's a bit ironic that the Administration is crying foul
so loudly
over the Soviet/Russian spy in the CIA -- as if this was
unfair --
while they're openly proclaiming the right to spy on
citizens
and foreigners via Clipper." [Carl Ellison, 1994-02-23]
+ Cameras are becoming ubiquitous
+ cheap, integrated, new technologes
- SDI fisheye lens
- ATMs
- traffic, speed traps, street corners
- store security
- Barcodes--worst fear of all...and not plausible
+ Automatic recognition is still lacking
- getting better, slowly
- neural nets, etc. (but these require training)
11.3.4. "Why would the government monitor _my_ communications?"
- "Because of economics and political stability....You can
build computers and monitoring devices in secret, deploy
them in secret, and listen to _everything_. To listen to
everything with bludgeons and pharmaceuticals would not
only cost more in labor and equipment, but also engender a
radicalizing backlash to an actual police state." [Eric
Hughes, 1994-01-26]
- Systems like Digital Telephony and Clipper make it much too
easy for governments to routinely monitor their citizens,
using automated technology that requires drastically less
human involvement than previous police states required.
11.3.5. "How much surveillance is actually being done today?"
+ FBI and Law Enforcement Surveillance Activities
- the FBI kept records of meetings (between American
companies and Nazi interests), and may have used these
records during and after the war to pressure companies
+ NSA and Security Agency Surveillance Activities
- collecting economic intelligence
- in WW2, Economic Warfare Council (which was renamed Board
of Economic Warfare) kept tabs on shipments of petroleum
and other products
+ MINARET, code word for NSA "watch list" material
(intercepts)
- SIGINT OPERATION MINARET
- originally, watch list material was "TOP SECRET
HANDLE VIA COMINT CHANNELS ONLY UMBRA GAMMA"
+ NSA targeting is done primarily via a list called
Intelligence Guidelines for COMINT Priorities (IGCP)
- committe made up of representatives from several
intelligence agencies
- intiated in around 1966
+ revelations following Pentagon Papers that national
security elsur had picked up private conversations (part
of the Papers)
- timing of PP was late 1963, early 1964...about time UB
was getting going
+ F-3, the NSA's main antenna system for intercepting ASCII
transmissions from un-TEMPESTed terminals and PCs
- signals can be picked up through walls up to a foot
thick (or more, considering how such impulses bounce
around)
+ Joint FBI/NSA Surveillance Activities
+ Operation Shamrock was a tie between NSA and FBI
- since 1945, although there had been earlier intercepts,
too
- COINTELPRO, dissidents, radicals
+ 8/0/45 Operation Shamrock begins
- a sub rosa effort to continue the monitoring
arrangements of WW II
- ITT Communications agreed to turn over all cables
+ RCA Communications also turned over all cables
- even had an ex-Signal Corps officer as a VP to
handle the details
- direct hookups to RCA lines were made, for careful
monitoring by the ASA
- cables to and from corporations, law firms,
embassies, citizens were all kept
+ 12/16/47 Meeting between Sosthenes Behn of ITT,
General Ingles of RCA, and Sec. of Defense James
Forrestal
- to discuss Operation Shamrock
- to arrange exemptions from prosecution
+ 0/0/63 Operation Shamrock enters a new phase as RCA
Global switches to computerized operation
- coincident with Harvest at NSA
- and perfect for start of UB/Severn operations
+ 1/6/67 Hoover officially terminates "black bag"
operations
- concerned about blowback
- had previously helped NSA by stealing codes, ciphers,
decrypted traffic, planting bugs on phone lines, etc.
- from embassies, corporations
- unclear as to whether these operations continued
anyway
+ Plot Twist: may have been the motivation for NSA and
UB/Severn to pursue other avenues, such as the use of
criminals as cutouts
- and is parallel to "Plumbers Unit" used by White
House
+ 10/1/73 AG Elliot Richardson orders FBI and SS to
stop requesting NSA surveillance material
- NSA agreed to stop providing this, but didn't tell
Richardson about Shamrock or Minaret
- however, events of this year (1973) marked the end of
Minaret
+ 3/4/77 Justice Dept. recommends against prosecution
of any NSA or FBI personnel over Operations Shamrock
and Minaret
- decided that NSCID No. 9 (aka No. 6) gave NSA
sufficient leeway
- 5/15/75 Operation Shamrock officially terminated
- and Minaret, of course
+ Operation Shamrock-Details
+ 8/0/45 Operation Shamrock begins
- a sub rosa effort to continue the monitoring
arrangements of WW II
- ITT Communications agreed to turn over all cables
+ RCA Communications also turned over all cables
- even had an ex-Signal Corps officer as a VP to
handle the details
- direct hookups to RCA lines were made, for careful
monitoring by the ASA
- cables to and from corporations, law firms,
embassies, citizens were all kept
+ 12/16/47 Meeting between Sosthenes Behn of ITT,
General Ingles of RCA, and Sec. of Defense James
Forrestal
- to discuss Operation Shamrock
- to arrange exemptions from prosecution
+ 0/0/63 Operation Shamrock enters a new phase as RCA
Global switches to computerized operation
- coincident with Harvest at NSA
- and perfect for start of UB/Severn operations
+ 8/18/66 (Thursday) New analysis site in New York for
Operation Shamrock
+ Louis Tordella meets with CIA Dep. Dir. of Plans and
arranges to set up a new listening post for analysis
of the tapes from RCA and ITT (that had been being
shipped to NSA and then back)
- Tordella was later involved in setting up the watch
list in 1970 for the BNDD, (Operation Minaret)
- LPMEDLEY was code name, of a television tape
processing shop (reminiscent of "Man from U.N.C.L.E."
- but NSA had too move away later
- 5/15/75 Operation Shamrock officially terminated
+ 10/1/73 AG Elliot Richardson orders FBI and SS to
stop requesting NSA surveillance material
- NSA agreed to stop providing this, but didn't tell
Richardson about Shamrock or Minaret
- however, events of this year (1973) marked the end of
Minaret
- Abzug committee prompted by New York Daily News report,
7/22/75, that NSA and FBI had been monitoring
commercial cable traffic (Operation Shamrock)
+ 6/30/76 175 page report on Justice Dept.
investigation of Shamrock and Minaret
- only 2 copies prepared, classified TOP SECRET UMBRA,
HANDLE VIA COMINT CHANNELS ONLY
+ 3/4/77 Justice Dept. recommends against prosecution
of any NSA or FBI personnel over Operations Shamrock
and Minaret
- decided that NSCID No. 9 (aka No. 6) gave NSA
sufficient leeway
+ the NSA program, begun in August 1945, to monitor all
telegrams entering or leaving the U.S.
- reminiscent of Yardley's arrangements in the 1920s
(and probably some others)
- known only to Louis Tordella and agents involved
- compartmentalization
+ Plot Links of Operation Shamrock to Operation Ultra
Black
- many links, from secrecy, compartmentalization, and
illegality to the methods used and the subversion of
government power
- "Shamrock was blown...Ultra Black burrowed even
deeper."
+ NSA, FBI, and surveillance of Cuban sympathizers
- "watch list" used
- were there links to Meyer Lansky and Trafficante via
the JFK-Mafia connection?
- various Watergate break-in connections (Cubans used)
- Hoover ended black-bag operations in 1967-8
+ NSA, FBI, and Dissenters (COINTELPRO-type activities)
+ 10/20/67 NSA is asked to begin collecting information
related to civil disturbances, war protesters, etc.
- Army Intelligence, Secret Service, CIA, FBI, DIA were
all involved
- arguably, this continues (given the success of FBI
and Secret Service in heading off major acts of
terrorism and attempted assassinations)
+ Huston Plan and Related Plans (1970-71)
- 7/19/66 Hoover unofficially terminates black bag
operations
+ 1/6/67 Hoover officially terminates black bag
operations
- fearing blowback, concerned about his place in
history
+ 6/20/69 Tom C. Huston recommends increased
intelligence activity on dissent
- memo to NSA, CIA, DIA, FBI
- this later becomes basis of Huston Plan
+ 6/5/70 Meeting at White House to prepare for Huston
Plan; Interagency Committee on Intelligence (Ad Hoc),
ICI
- Nixon, Huston, Ehrlichman, Haldeman, Noel Gayler of
NSA. Richard Helms of CIA, J. Edgar Hoover of FBI,
Donald V. Bennett of DIA
- William Sullivan of FBI named to head ICI
+ NSA enthusiastically supported ICI
- PROD named Benson Buffham as liaison
- sought increased surreptitious entries and
elimination of legal restrictions on domestic
surveillance (not that they had felt bound by
legalisms)
- recipients to be on "Bigot List" and with even more
security than traditional TOP SECRET, HANDLE VIA
COMINT CHANNELS ONLY
-
+ 7/23/70 Huston Plan circulated
- 43 pages, entitled Domestic Intelligence Gathering
Plan: Analysis and Stategy
- urged increased surreptitious entries (for codes,
ciphers, plans, membership lists)
- targeting of embassies
+ 7/27/70 Huston Plan cancelled
- pressure by Attorney General John Mitchell
- and perhaps by Hoover
- Huston demoted; he resigned a year later
- but the Plan was not really dead...perhaps Huston's
mistake was in being young and vocal and making the
report too visible and not deniable enough
+ 12/3/70 Intelligence Evaluation Committee (IEC) meets
(Son-of-Huston Plan)
- John Dean arranged it in fall of '70
- Robert C. Mardian, Assistant AG for Internal Security
headed up the IEC
- Benson Buffham of NSA/PROD, James Jesus Angleton of
CIA, George Moore from FBI, Col. John Downie from DOD
- essentially adopted all of Huston Plan
+ 1/26/71 NSA issues NSA Contribution to Domestic
Intelligence (as part of IEC)
- increased scope of surveillance related to drugs (via
BNDD and FBI), foreign nationals
- "no indication of origin" on generated material
- full compartmentalization, NSA to ensure compliance
+ 8/4/71 G. Gordon Liddy attends IEC meeting, to get
them to investigate leaks of Pentagon Papers
- channel from NSA/PROD to Plumber's Unit in White
House, bypassing other agencies
+ 6/7/73 New York Times reveals details of Huston Plan
- full text published
- trials of Weatherman jeopardized and ultimately
derailed it
+ 10/1/73 AG Elliot Richardson orders FBI and SS to
stop requesting NSA surveillance material
- NSA agreed to stop providing this, but didn't tell
Richardson about Shamrock or Minaret
- however, events of this year (1973) marked the end of
Minaret
+ FINCEN, IRS, and Other Economic Surveillance
- set up in Arlington as a group to monitor the flows of
money and information
+ eventually these groups will see the need to actively
hack into computer systems used by various groups that
are under investigation
- ties to the death of Alan Standorf? (Vint Hill)
- Casolaro, Riconosciutto
11.3.6. "Does the government want to monitor economic transactions?"
- Incontrovertibly, they _want_ to. Whether they have actual
plans to do so is more debatable. The Clipper and Digital
Telephony proposals are but two of the indications they
have great plans laid to ensure their surveillance
capabilities are maintained and extended.
- The government will get increasingly panicky as more Net
commerce develops, as trade moves offshore, and as
encryption spreads.
11.3.7. A danger of the surveillance society: You can't hide
- seldom discussed as a concern
- no escape valve, no place for those who made mistakes to
escape to
- (historically, this is a way for criminals to get back on a
better track--if a digital identity means their record
forever follows them, this may...)
+ A growing problem in America and other "democratic"
countries is the tendency to make mandatory what were once
voluntary choices. For example, fingerprinting children to
help in kidnapping cases may be a reasonable thing to do
voluntarily, but some school districts are planning to make
it mandatory.
- This is all part of the "Let's pass a law" mentality.
11.3.8. "Should I refuse to give my Social Security Number to those
who ask for it?"
- It's a bit off of crypto, but the question does keep coming
up on the Cypherpunks list.
- Actually, they don't even need to ask for it
anymore....it's attached to so many _other_ things that pop
up when they enter your name that it's a moot point. In
other words, the same dossiers that allow the credit card
companies to send you "preapproved credit cards" every few
days are the same dossiers that MCI, Sprint, AT&T, etc. are
using to sign you up.
11.3.9. "What is 'Privacy 101'?"
- I couldn't think of a better way to introduce the topic of
how individuals can protect their privacy, avoid
interference by the government, and (perhaps) avoid taxes.
- Duncan Frissell and Sandy Sandfort have given out a lot of
tips on this, some of them just plain common sense, some of
them more arcane.
+ They are conducting a seminar, entitled "PRIVACY 101" and
the archives of this are available by Web at:
- http://www.iquest.com/~fairgate/privacy/index.html
11.3.10. Cellular phones are trackable by region...people are getting
phone calls as they cross into new zones, "welcoming" them
- but it implies that their position is already being tracked
11.3.11. Ubiquitous use of SSNs and other personal I.D.
11.3.12. cameras that can recognize faces are placed in many public
places, e.g., airports, ports of entry, government buildings
- and even in some private places, e.g., casinos, stores that
have had problems with certain customers, banks that face
robberies, etc.
11.3.13. speculation (for the paranoids)
- covert surveillance by noninvasive detection
methods...positron emission tomography to see what part of
the brain is active (think of the paranoia possibility!)
- typically needs special compounds, but...
11.3.14. Diaries are no longer private
+ can be opened under several conditions
- subpoena in trial
- discovery in various court cases, including divorce,
custody, libel, etc.
- business dealings
- psychiatrists (under Tarasoff ruling) can have records
opened; whatever one may think of the need for crimes
confessed to shrinks to be reported, this is certainly a
new era
- Packwood diary case establishes the trend: diaries are no
longer sacrosanct
- An implication for crypto and Cypherpunks topics is that
diaries and similar records may be stored in encrypted
forms, or located in offshore locations. There may be more
and more use of offshore or encrypted records.
11.4. U.S. Intelligence Agencies: NSA, FinCEN, CIA, DIA, NRO, FBI
11.4.1. The focus here is on U.S. agencies, for various reasons. Most
Cypherpunks are currently Americans, the NSA has a dominant
role in surveillance technology, and the U.S. is the focus of
most current crypto debate. (Britain has the GCHQ, Canada has
its own SIGINT group, the Dutch have...., France has DGSE and
so forth, and...)
11.4.2. Technically, not all are equal. And some may quibble with my
calling the FBI an "intelligence agency." All have
surveillance and monitoring functions, albeit of different
flavors.
11.4.3. "Is the NSA involved in domestic surveillance?"
+ Not completely confirmed, but much evidence that the answer
is "yes":
* previous domestic surveillance (Operation Shamrock,
telegraphs, ITT, collusion with FBI, etc.)
* reciprocal arrangements with GCHQ (U.K.)
* arrangements on Indian reservations for microwave
intercepts
* the general technology allows it (SIGINT, phone lines)
* the National Security Act of 1947, and later
clarifications and Executive Orders, makes it likely
- And the push for Digital Telephony.
11.4.4. "What will be the effects of widespread crypto use on
intelligence collection?"
- Read Bamford for some stuff on how the NSA intercepts
overseas communications, how they sold deliberately-
crippled crypto machines to Third World nations, and how
much they fear the spread of strong, essentially
unbreakable crypto. "The Puzzle Palace" was published in
1982...things have only gotten worse in this regard since.
- Statements from senior intelligence officials reflect this
concern.
- Digital dead drops will change the whole espionage game.
Information markets, data havens, untraceable e-mail...all
of these things will have a profound effect on national
security issues.
- I expect folks like Tom Clancy to be writing novels about
how U.S. national security interests are being threatened
by "unbreakable crypto." (I like some Clancy novels, but
there's no denying he is a right-winger who's openly
critical of social trends, and that he believes druggies
should be killed, the government is necessary to ward off
evil, and ordinary citizens ought not to have tools the
government can't overcome.)
11.4.5. "What will the effects of crypto on conventional espionage?"
- Massive effects; watch out for this to be cited as a reason
to ban or restrict crypto--however pointless that may be.
+ Effects:
- information markets, a la BlackNet
- digital dead drops -- why use Coke cans near oak trees
when you can put messages into files and post them
worldwide, with untraceably? (but, importantly, with a
digital signature!)
- transparency of borders
- arms trade, arms deals
- virus, weaponry
11.4.6. NSA budget
- $27 billion over 6 years, give or take
- may actually increase, despite end of Cold War
- new threats, smaller states, spread of nukes, concerns
about trade, money-laundering, etc.
- first rule of bureaucracies: they always get bigger
+ NSA-Cray Computer supercomputer
+ press release, 1994-08-17, gives some clues about the
capabilities sought by the surveillance state
- "The Cray-3/SSS will be a hybrid system capable of
vector parallel processing, scalable parallel
processing and a combination of both. The system will
consist of a dual processor 256 million word Cray-3 and
a 512,000 processor 128 million byte single instruction
multiple data (SIMD) array......SIMD arrays of one
million processors are expected to be possible using
the current version of the Processor-In-Memory (PIM)
chips developed by the Supercomputing Research Center
once the development project is completed. The PIM chip
contains 64 single-bit processors and 128 kilobyte bits
of memory. Cray Computer will package PIM chips
utilizing its advanced multiple chip module packaging
technology. The chips are manufactured by National
Semiconductor Corporation."
- This is probably the supercomputer described in the
Gunter Ahrendt report
11.4.7. FINCEN, IRS, and Other Economic Surveillance
- Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a consortium or task
force made up of DEA, DOJ, FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, IRS, etc.
- set up in Arlington as a group to monitor the flows of
money and information
- eventually these groups will see the need to hack into
computer systems used by various groups that are under
investigation
- Cf. "Wired," either November or December, 1993
11.4.8. "Why are so many computer service, telecom, and credit agency
companies located near U.S. intelligence agency sites?"
+ For example, the cluster of telecom and credit reporting
agencies (TRW Credit, Transunion, etc.) in and around the
McLean/Langley area of Northern Virginia (including
Herndon, Vienna, Tyson's Corner, Chantilly, etc.)
- same thing for, as I recall, various computer network
providers, such as UUCP (or whatever), America Online,
etc.
- The least conspiratorial view: because all are located near
Washington, D.C., for various regulatory, lobbying, etc.
reasons
+ The most conspiratorial view: to ensure that the
intelligence agencies have easy access to communications,
direct landlines, etc.
- credit reporting agencies need to clear identities that
are fabricated for the intelligence agencies, WitSec,
etc. (the three major credit agencies have to be
complicit in these creations, as the "ghosts" show up
immediately when past records are cross-correlated)
- As Paul Ferguson, Cypherpunk and manager at US Sprint,
puts it: "We're located in Herndon, Virginia, right
across the street from Dulles Airport and a hop, skip &
jump down the street from the new NRO office. ,-)"
[P.F., 1994-08-18]
11.4.9. Task Force 157, ONI, Kissinger, Castle Bank, Nugan Hand Bank,
CIA
11.4.10. NRO building controversy
- and an agency I hadn't seen listed until August, 1994: "The
Central Imagery Office"
11.4.11. SIGINT listening posts
+ possible monkeywrenching?
- probably too hard, even for an EMP bomb (non-nuclear,
that is)
11.4.12. "What steps is the NSA taking?"
* besides death threats against Jim Bidzos, that is
* Clipper a plan to drive competitors out (pricing, export
laws, harassment)
* cooperation with other intelligence agencies, other nations
- New World Order
* death threats were likely just a case of bullying...but
could conceivably be part of a campaign of terror--to shut
up critics or at least cause them to hesitate
11.5. Surveillance in Other Countries
11.5.1. Partly this overlaps on the earlier discussion of crypto laws
in other countries.
11.5.2. Major Non-U.S. Surveillance Organizations
+ BnD -- Bundesnachrichtendienst
- German security service
- BND is seeking constitutional amendment, buy may not need
it, as the mere call for it told everyone what is already
existing
- "vacuum cleaner in the ether"
- Gehlen...Eastern Front Intelligence
- Pullach, outside Munchen
- they have always tried to get the approval to do domestic
spying...a key to power
+ Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) -- W. German FBI
- HQ is at Wiesbaden
- bomb blew up there when being examined, killing an
officer (related to Pan Am/Lockerbie/PFLP-GC)
- sign has double black eagles (back to back)
- BVD -- Binnenlandse Veiligheids Dienst, Dutch Internal
Security Service
+ SDECE
- French intelligence (foreign intelligence), linked to
Greepeace ship bombing in New Zealand?
- SDECE had links to the October Surprise, as some French
agents were in on the negotiations, the arms shipments
out of Marseilles and Toulon, and in meetings with
Russbacher and the others
- DST, Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire,
counterespionage arm of France (parallel to FBI)
+ DSGE, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extériere
- provides draft deferments for those who deliver stolen
information
+ Sweden, Forsvarets Radioanstalt ("Radio Agency of the
Defense")
- cracked German communications between occupied Norway and
occupied Denmark
- Beurling, with paper and pencil only
+ Mossad, LAKAM, Israel
+ HQ in Tel Aviv, near HQ of AMAN, military intelligence
- doesn't HQ move around a lot?
- LAKAM (sp?), a supersecret Israeli intelligence
agency...was shown the PROMIS software in 1983
+ learned of the Pakistani success in building an atom bomb
and took action against the Pakistani leadership:
destruction of the plane carrying the President (Zia?)
and some U.S. experts
- Mossad knew of DIA and CIA involvement in BCCI
financing of Pakistani atom bomb efforts (and links to
other arms dealers that allowed triggers and the like
to reach Pakistan)
- revelations by Vanunu were designed to scare the Arab and
Muslim world-and to send a signal that the killing of
President Zia was to be the fate of any Pakistani leader
who continued the program
11.5.3. They are very active, though they get less publicity than do
the American CIA, NSA, FBI, etc.
11.6. Surveillance Methods and Technology
11.6.1. (some of this gets speculative and so may not be to
everyone's liking)
11.6.2. "What is TEMPEST and what's the importance of it?"
- TEMPEST apprarently stands for nothing, and hence is not an
acronym, just a name. The all caps is the standard
spelling.
- RF emission, a set of specs for complying
- Van Eyck (or Van Eck?) radiation
+ Mostly CRTs are the concern, but also LCD panels and the
internal circuitry of the PCs, workstations, or terminals.
- "Many LCD screens can be read at a distance. The signal
is not as strong as that from the worst vdus, but it is
still considerable. I have demonstrated attacks on Zenith
laptops at 10 metres or so with an ESL 400 monitoring
receiver and a 4m dipole antenna; with a more modern
receiver, a directional antenna and a quiet RF
environment there is no reason why 100 metres should be
impossible." [Ross Anderson, Tempest Attacks on Notebook
Computers ???, comp.security.misc, 1994-08-31]
11.6.3. What are some of the New Technologies for Espionage and
Surveillance
+ Bugs
+ NSA and CIA have developed new levels of miniaturized
bugs
- e.g., passive systems that only dribble out intercepted
material when interrogated (e.g., when no bug sweeps
are underway)
- many of these new bugging technologies were used in the
John Gotti case in New York...the end of the Cold War
meant that many of these technologies became available
for use by the non-defense side
- the use of such bugging technology is a frightening
development: conversations can be heard inside sealed
houses from across streets, and all that will be
required is an obligatory warrant
+ DRAM storage of compressed speech...6-bit companded,
frequency-limited, so that 1 sec of speech takes
50Kbits, or 10K when compressed, for a total of 36 Mbits
per hour-this will fit on a single chip
- readout can be done from a "mothership" module (a
larger bug that sits in some more secure location)
- or via tight-beam lasers
+ Bugs are Mobile
- can crawl up walls, using the MIT-built technology for
microrobots
- some can even fly for short distances (a few klicks)
+ Wiretaps
- so many approaches here
- phone switches are almost totally digital (a la ESS IV)
- again, software hacks to allow wiretaps
+ Vans equipped to eavesdrop on PCs and networks
+ TEMPEST systems
+ technology is somewhat restricted, companies doing this
work are under limitations not to ship to some
customers
- no laws against shielding, of course
- these vans are justified for the "war on drugs" and
weapons proliferation controle efforts (N.E.S.T., anti-
Iraq, etc.)
+ Long-distance listening
- parabolic reflectors, noise cancellation (from any off-
axis sources), high gain amplification, phoneme analysis
- neural nets that learn the speech patterns and so can
improve clarity
+ lip-reading
- with electronically stabilized CCD imagers, 3000mm lenses
- neural net-based lip-reading programs, with learning
systems capable of improving performance
- for those in sensitive positions, the availability of new
bugging methods will accelerate the conversion to secure
systems based on encrypted telecommunications and the
avoidance of voice-based systems
11.6.4. Digital Telephony II is a major step toward easier
surveillance
11.6.5. Citizen tracking
+ the governments of the world would obviously like to trace
the movements, or at least the major movements, of their
subjects
- makes black markets a bit more difficult
- surfaces terrorists, illegal immigrants, etc. (not
perfectly)
+ allows tracking of "sex offenders"
- who often have to register with the local police,
announce to their neighbors their previous crimes, and
generally wear a scarlet letter at all times--I'm not
defending rapists and child molesters, just noting the
dangerous precedent this is setting
- because its the nature of bureaucracies to want to know
where "their" subjects are (dossier society = accounting
society...records are paramount)
+ Bill Stewart has pointed out that the national health care
systems, and the issuance of social security numbers to
children, represent a way to track the movements of
children, through hospital visits, schools, etc. Maybe even
random check points at places where children gather (malls,
schools, playgrounds, opium dens, etc.)
- children in such places are presumed to have lesser
rights, hence...
- this could all be used to track down kidnapped children,
non-custodial parents, etc.
- this could be a wedge in the door: as the children age,
the system is already in place to continue the tracking
(about the right timetable, too...start the systme this
decade and by 2010 or 2020, nearly everybody will be in
it)
- (A true paranoid would link these ideas to the child
photos many schools are requring, many local police
departments are officially assisting with, etc. A dossier
society needs mug shots on all the perps.)
- These are all reasons why governments will continue to push
for identity systems and will seek to derail efforts at
providing anonymity
+ Surveillance and Personnel Identification
+ cameras that can recognize faces are placed in many
public places, e.g., airports, ports of entry, government
buildings
- and even in some private places, e.g., casinos, stores
that have had problems with certain customers, banks
that face robberies, etc.
+ "suspicious movements detectors"
+ cameras that track movements, loitering, eye contact
with other patrons
+ neural nets used to classify behvaiors
- legal standing not needed, as these systems are
used only to trigger further surveillance, not to
prove guilt in a court of law
- example: banks have cameras, by 1998, that can
identify potential bank robbers
- camera images are sent to a central monitoring
facility, so the usual ploy of stopping the silent
alarm won't work
- airports and train stations (fears of terrorists),
other public places
11.6.6. Cellular phones are trackable by region...people are getting
phone calls as they cross into new zones, "welcoming" them
- but it implies that their position is already being tracked
11.6.7. coming surveillance, Van Eck, piracy, vans
- An interesting sign of things to come is provided in this
tale from a list member: "In Britain we have 'TV detector
Vans'. These are to detect licence evaders (you need to pay
an annual licence for the BBC channels). They are provided
by the Department of Trade and Industry. They use something
like a small minibus and use Van Eck principles. They have
two steerable detectors on the van roof so they can
triangulate. But TV shops have to notify the Government of
buyers - so that is the basic way in which licence evaders
are detected. ... I read of a case on a bulletin board
where someone did not have a TV but used a PC. He got a
knock on the door. They said he appeared to have a TV but
they could not make out what channel he was watching!
[Martin Spellman, , 1994-
0703]
- This kind of surveillance is likely to become more and more
common, and raises serious questions about what _other_
information they'll look for. Perhaps the software piracy
enforcers (Software Publishers Association) will look for
illegal copies of Microsoft Word or SimCity! (This area
needs more discussion, obviously.)
11.6.8. wiretaps
- supposed to notify targets within 90 days, unless extended
by a judge
- Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act cases are exempt from
this (it is likely that Cypherpunks wiretapped, if they
have been, for crypto activities fall under this
case...foreigners, borders being crossed, national security
implications, etc. are all plausible reasons, under the
Act)
11.7. Surveillance Targets
11.7.1. Things the Government May Monitor
- besides the obvious things like diplomatic cable traffic,
phone calls from and to suspected terrorists and criminals,
etc.
+ links between Congressmen and foreign embassies
- claims in NYT (c. 9-19-91) that CIA had files on
Congressmen opposing aid to Contras
+ Grow lamps for marijuana cultivation
- raids on hydroponic supply houses and seizure of mailing
lists
- records of postings to alt.drugs and alt.psychoactive
- vitamin buyers clubs
+ Energy consumption
- to spot use of grow lamps
+ but also might be refined to spot illegal aliens being
sheltered or any other household energy consumption
"inconsistent with reported uses"
- same for water, sewage, etc.
+ raw chemicals
- as with monitors on ammonium nitrate and other bomb
materials
- or feedstock for cocaine production (recall various
seizures of shipments of chemicals to Latin America)
- checkout of books, a la FBI's "Library Awareness Program"
of around 1986 or so
- attendance at key conferences, such as Hackers Conference
(could have scenes involving this), Computer Security
Conference
11.7.2. Economic Intelligence (Spying on Corporations, Foreign and
Domestic)
+ "Does the NSA use economic intelligence data obtained in
intercepts?"
- Some of us speculate that this is so, that this has been
going on since the 1960s at least. For example, Bamford
noted in 1982 that the NSA had foreknowledge of the plans
by the British to devalue the pound in the late 1970s,
and knowledge of various corporate plans.
- The NSA clears codes used by the CIA, so it seem
impossible for the NSA not to have known about CIA drug
smuggling activities. The NSA is very circumspect,
however, and rarely (or never) comments.
+ there have been calls for the government to somehow help
American business and overall competitiveness by "levelling
the playing field" via espionage
- especially as the perceived threat of the Soviet bloc
diminishes and as the perceived threat of Japan and
Germany increases
- leaders of the NSA and CIA have even talked openly about
turning to economic surveillance
+ Problems with this proposal:
- illegal
- unethical
+ who gets the intelligence information? Does NSA just call
up Apple and say "We've intercepted some message from
Taiwan that describe their plans for factories. Are you
interested?"
- the U.S. situation differs from Japan and MITI (which
is often portrayed as the model for how this ought to
work) in that we have many companies with little or no
history of obeying government recommendations
+ and foreign countries will likely learn of this espionage
and take appropriate measures
- e.g., by increasing encryption
11.7.3. War on Drugs and Money Laundering is Causing Increase in
Surveillance and Monitoring
- monitoring flows of capital, cash transactions, etc.
- cooperation with Interpol, foreign governments, even the
Soviets and KGB (or whatever becomes of them)
- new radar systems are monitoring light aircraft, boats,
etc.
11.8. Legal Issues
11.8.1. "Can my boss monitor my work?" "Can my bankruptcy in 1980 be
used to deny me a loan?" etc.
- Libertarians have a very different set of answers than do
many others: the answer to all these questions is mostly
"yes," morally (sorry for the normative view).
11.8.2. Theme: to protect some rights, invasion of privacy is being
justified
- e.g., by forcing employer records to be turned over, or of
seizing video rental records (on the grounds of catching
sexual deviants)
- various laws about employee monitoring
11.8.3. Government ID cards, ability to fake identities
- The government uses its powers to forge credentials, with
the collusion of the major credit agencies (who obviously
see these fake identities "pop into existence full-blown."
- WitSec, FINCen, false IDs, ties to credit card companies
- DEA stings, Heidi in La Jolla, Tava, fake tax returns, fake
bank applications, fake IDs
- the "above it all" attitude is typical of this...who guards
the guardians?
- WitSec, duplicity
11.8.4. Legalities of NSA surveillance
- read Bamford for some circa 1982 poinra
- UK-USA
- ECPA
- national security exemptions
- lots of confusion; however, the laws have never had any
real influence, and I cannot imagine the NSA being sued!
11.9. Dossiers and Data Bases
11.9.1. "The dossier never forgets"
+ any transgressions of any law in any country can be stored
indefinitely, exposing the transgressor to arrest and
detention anytime he enters a country with such a record on
him
- (This came up with regard to the British having quaint
ideas about computer security, hacking, and data privacy;
it is quite possible that an American passing through
London could be detained for some obscure violation years
in the past.)
- this is especially worrisome in a society in which legal
codes fill entire rooms and in which nearly every day
produces some violation of some law
11.9.2. "What about the privacy issues with home shopping, set-top
boxes, advertisers, and the NII?"
- Do we want our preferences in toothpaste fed into databases
so that advertisers can target us? Or that our food
purchases be correlated and analyzed by the government to
spot violations of the Dietary Health Act?
- First, laws which tell people what records they are
"allowed" to keep are wrong-headed, and lead to police
state inspections of disk drives, etc. The so-called "Data
Privacy" laws of several European nations are a nightmare.
Strong crypto makes them moot.
- Second, it is mostly up to people to protect what they want
protected, not to pass laws demanding that others protect
it for them.
- In practice, this means either use cash or make
arrangements with banks and credit card companies that will
protect privacy. Determining if they have or not is another
issue, but various ideas suggest themselves (John Gilmore
says he often joins groups under variants of his name, to
see who is selling his name to mailing lists.)
- Absent any laws which forbid them, privacy-preserving
credit card companies will likely spring up if there's a
market demand. Digital cash is an example. Other variants
abound. Cypherpunks should not allow such alternatives to
be banned, and should of course work on their own such
systems.
11.9.3. credit agencies
- TRW Credit, Transunion, Equifax
- links to WitSec
11.9.4. selling of data bases, linking of records...
- several states have admitted to selling their driver's
license data bases
11.10. Police States and Informants
11.10.1. Police states need a sense of terror to help magnify the
power or the state, a kind of "shrechlichkeit," as the Nazis
used to call it. And lots of informants. Police states need
willing accomplices to turn in their neighbors, or even their
parents, just as little Pavel Morozov became a Hero of the
Soviet People by sending his parents to their deaths in
Stalin's labor camps for the crime of expressing negative
opinions about the glorious State.
- (The canonization of Pavel Morozov was recently repudiated
by current Russian leaders--maybe even by the late-Soviet
era leades, like Gorbachev--who pointed out the corrosive
effects of encouraging families to narc on each
other...something the U.S. has forgotten...will it be 50
years before our leaders admit that having children turn in
Daddy for using "illegal crypto" was not such a good idea?)
11.10.2. Children are encouraged in federally-mandated D.A.R.E.
programs to become Junior Narcs, narcing their parents out to
the cops and counselors who come into their schools.
11.10.3. The BATF has a toll-free line (800-ATF-GUNS) for snitching on
neighbors who one thinks are violating the federal gun laws.
(Reports are this is backfiring, as gun owners call the
number to report on local liberal politicians and gun-
grabbers.)
11.10.4. Some country we live in, eh? (Apologies to non-U.S. readers,
as always.)
11.10.5. The implications for use of crypto, for not trusting others,
etc., are clear
11.10.6. Dangers of informants
+ more than half of all IRS prosecutions arise out of tips by
spouses and ex-spouses...they have the inside dope, the
motive, and the means
- a sobering thought even in the age of crypto
+ the U.S. is increasing a society of narcs and stool
pigeons, with "CIs" (confidential informants), protected
witnesses (with phony IDs and lavish lifestyles), and with
all sorts of vague threats and promises
- in a system with tens of thousands of laws, nearly all
behavior breaks at least some laws, often unavoidably,
and hence a powerful sword hangs over everyone's head
- corrosion of trust, especially within families (DARE
program in schools encourages children to narc on their
parents who are "substance abusers"!)
11.11. Privacy Laws
11.11.1. Will proposed privacy laws have an effect?
+ I suspect just the opposite: the tangled web of laws-part
of the totalitarian freezeout-will "marginalize" more
people and cause them to seek ways to protect their own
privacy and protect themselves from sanctions over their
actions
+ free speech vs. torts, SLAPP suits, sedition charges,
illegal research, etc.
- free speech is vanishing under a torrent of laws,
licensing requirements, and even zoning rules
+ outlawing of work on drugs, medical procedures, etc.
- against the law to disseminate information on drug use
(MDMA case at Stanford), on certain kinds of birth
control
- "If encrytion is outlawed, only outlaws will have
encryption."
+ privacy laws are already causing encryption ("file
protection") to be mandatory in many cases, as with medical
records, transmission of sensitive files, etc.
- by itself this is not in conflict with the government
requirement for tappable access, but the practical
implementation of a two-tier system-secure against
civilian tappers but readable by national security
tappers-is a nightmare and is likely impossible to
achieve
11.11.2. "Why are things like the "Data Privacy Laws" so bad?"
- Most European countries have laws that limit the collection
of computerized records, dossiers, etc., except for
approved uses (and the governments themselves and their
agents).
- Americans have no such laws. I've heard calls for this,
which I think is too bad.
- While we may not like the idea of others compiling dossiers
on us, stopping them is an even worse situation. It gives
the state the power to enter businesses, homes, and examine
computers (else it is completely unenforceable). It creates
ludicrous situations in which, say, someone making up a
computerized list of their phone contacts is compiling an
illegal database! It makes e-mail a crime (those records
that are kept).
- they are themselves major invasions of privacy
- are you going to put me in jail because I have data bases
of e-mail, Usenet posts, etc.?
- In my opinion, advocates of "privacy" are often confused
about this issue, and fail to realize that laws about
privacy often take away the privacy rights of _others_.
(Rights are rarely in conflict--contract plus self-privacy
take care of 99% of situations where rights are purported
to be in conflict.)
11.11.3. on the various "data privacy laws"
- many countries have adopted these data privacy laws,
involving restrictions on the records that can be kept, the
registration of things like mailing lists, and heavy
penalties for those found keeping computer files deemed
impermissable
- this leads to invasions of privacy....this very Cypherpunks
list would have to be "approved" by a bureaucrat in many
countries...the oportunites (and inevitabilities) of abuse
are obvious
- "There is a central contradiction running through the
dabase regulations proposed by many so-called "privacy
advocates". To be enforceable they require massive
government snooping into database activities on our
workstatins and PCs, especially the activities of many
small at-home businesses (such as mailing list
entrepreneurs who often work out of the home).
"Thus, the upshot of these so-called "privacy" regulations
is to destroy our last shreds of privacy against
government, and calm us into blindly letting even more of
the details of our personal lives into the mainframes of
the major government agencies and credit reporting
agenices, who if they aren't explicitly excepted from the
privacy laws (as is common) can simply evade them by using
offshore havesn, mutual agreements with foreign
investigators, police and intelligence agencies." [Jim
Hart, 1994-09-08]
11.11.4. "What do Cypherpunks think about this?"
+ divided minds...while no one likes being monitored, the
question is how far one can go to stop others from being
monitored
- "Data Privacy Laws" as a bad example: tramples on freedom
to write, to keep one's computer private
11.11.5. Assertions to data bases need to be checked (credit,
reputation, who said what, etc.)
- if I merely assert that Joe Blow no longer is employed, and
this spreads...
11.12. National ID Systems
11.12.1. "National ID cards are just the driver's licenses on the
Information Superhighway." [unknown...may have been my
coining]
11.12.2. "What's the concern?"
11.12.3. Insurance and National Health Care will Produce the "National
ID" that will be Nearly Unescapable
- hospitals and doctors will have to have the card...cash
payments will evoke suspicion and may not even be feasible
11.12.4. National ID Card Arguments
- "worker's permit" (another proposal, 1994-08, that would
call for a national card authorizing work permission)
- immigration, benefit
- possible tie-in to the system being proposed by the US
Postal Service: a registry of public keys (will they also
"issue" the private-public key pair?)
- software key escrow and related ideas
- "I doubt that one would only have to "flash" your card and
be on your way. More correctly, one would have to submit
to being "scanned" and be on your way. This would also
serve to be a convienient locator tag if installed in the
toll systems and miscellaneous "security checkpoints". Why
would anyone with nothing to hide care if your every move
could be monitored? Its for your own good, right? Pretty
soon sliding your ID into slots in everyplace you go will
be common." [Korac MacArthur, comp.org.eff.talk, 1994-07-
25]
11.12.5. "What are some concerns about Universal ID Cards?"
- "Papierren, bitte! Schnell!
- that they would allow traceability to the max (as folks
used to say)... tracking of movements, erosion of privacy
- that they would be required to be used for banking
transactions, Net access, etc. (As usual, there may be
workarounds, hacks, ...)
- "is-a-person" credentially, where government gets involved
in the issuance of cryptographic keys (a la the USPS
proposal), where only "approved uses" are allowed, etc.
- timestamps, credentials
11.12.6. Postal Service trial balloon for national ID card
- "While it is true that they share technology, their intent
and purpose is very different. Chaum's proposal has as its
intent and purpose to provide and protect anonymity in
financial transactions. The intent and purpose of the US
Postal Service is to identify and authenticate you to the
government and to guarantee the traceability of all
financial transactions." [WHMurray, alt.privacy, 1994-07-
04]
11.12.7. Scenario for introduction of national ID cards
- Imagine that vehicle registrations require presentation of
this card (gotta get those illegals out of their cars, or,
more benignly, the bureaucracy simply makes the ID cars
part of their process).
- Instantly this makes those who refuse to get an ID card
unable to get valid license tags. (Enforcement is already
pretty good....I was pulled over a couple of times for
either forgetting to put my new stickers on, or for driving
with Oregon expired tags.)
+ The "National Benefits Card," for example, is then required
to get license plate tags.and maybe other things, like car
and home insurance, etc. It would be very difficult to
fight such a card, as one could not drive, could not pay
taxes ("Awhh!" I hear you say, but consider the penalties,
the tie-ins with employers, etc. You can run but you can't
hide.)
- the national ID card would presumably be tied in to
income tax filings, in various ways I won't go into here.
The Postal Service, aiming to get into this area I guess,
has floated the idea of electronic filing, ID systems,
etc.
11.12.8. Comments on national ID cards
- That some people will be able to skirt the system, or that
the system will ultimately be unenforceable, does not
lessen the concern. Things can get real tough in the
meantime.
- I see great dangers here, in tying a national ID card to
transactions we are essentially unable to avoid in this
society: driving, insurance (and let's not argue
insurance...I mean it is unavoidable in the sense of legal
issues, torts, etc.), border crossings, etc. Now how will
one file taxes without such a card if one is made mandatory
for interactions with the government? Saying "taxes are not
collectable" is not an adequate answer. They may not be
collectible for street punks and others who inhabit the
underground economy, but they sure are for most of us.
11.13. National Health Care System Issues
11.13.1. Insurance and National Health Care will Produce the "National
ID" that will be Nearly Unescapable
- hospitals and doctors will have to have the card...cash
payments will evoke suspicion and may not even be feasible
11.13.2. I'm less worried that a pharmacist will add me to some
database he keeps than that my doctor will be instructed to
compile a dossier to government standards and then zip it off
over the Infobahn to the authorities.
11.13.3. Dangers and issues of National Health Care Plan
- tracking, national ID card
- "If you think the BATF is bad, wait until the BHCRCE goes
into action. "What is the BHCRCE?" you ask. Why, it the
Burea of Health Care Reform Compliance Enforcement - the
BATF, FBI, FDA, CIA and IRS all rolled into one." [Dave
Feustel, talk.politics.guns, 1994-08-19]
- Bill Stewart has pointed out the dangers of children having
social security numbers, of tracking systems in schools and
hospitals, etc.
11.14. Credentials
11.14.1. This is one of the most overlooked and ignored aspects of
cryptology, especially of Chaum's work. And no one in
Cypherpunks or anywhere else is currently working on "blinded
credentials" for everyday use.
11.14.2. "Is proof of identity needed?"
- This question is debated a lot, and is important. Talk of a
national ID card (what wags call an "internal passport") is
in the air, as part of health care, welfare, and
immigration legislation. Electronic markets make this also
an issue for the ATM/smart card community. This is also
closely tied in with the nature of anonymous reamailers
(where physical identity is of course generally lacking).
+ First, "identity" can mean different things:
- Conventional View of Identity: Physical person, with
birthdate, physical characteristics, fingerprints, social
security numbers, passports, etc.--the whole cloud of
"identity" items. (Biometric.)
- Pseudonym View of Identity: Persistent personnas,
mediated with cryptography. "You are your key."
- Most of us deal with identity as a mix of these views: we
rarely check biometric credentials, but we also count on
physical clues (voice, appearance, etc.). I assume that
when I am speaking to "Duncan Frissell," whom I've never
met in person, that he is indeed Duncan Frissell. (Some
make the jump from this expectation to wanting the
government enforce this claim, that is, provided I.D.)
+ It is often claimed that physical identity is important in
order to:
- track down cheaters, welchers, contract breakes, etc.
- permit some people to engage in some transactions, and
forbid others to (age credentials, for drinking, for
example, or---less benignly--work permits in some field)
- taxation, voting, other schemes tied to physical
existence
+ But most of us conduct business with people without ever
verifying their identity credentials...mostly we take their
word that they are "Bill Stewart" or "Scott Collins," and
we never go beyond that.
- this could change as digital credentials proliferate and
as interactions cause automatic checks to be made (a
reason many of us have to support Chaum's "blinded
credentials" idea--without some crypto protections, we'll
be constantly tracked in all interactions).
+ A guiding principle: Leave this question of whether to
demand physical ID credentials up to the *parties
involved*. If Alice wants to see Bob's "is-a-person"
credential, and take his palmprint, or whatever, that's an
issue for them to work out. I see no moral reason, and
certainly no communal reason, for outsiders to interfere
and insist that ID be produced (or that ID be forbidden,
perhaps as some kind of "civil rights violation"). After
all, we interact in cyberspace, on the Cypherpunks list,
without any such external controls on identity.
- and business contracts are best negotiated locally, with
external enforcement contracted by the parties (privately-
produced law, already seen with insurance companies,
bonding agents, arbitration arrangements, etc.)
- Practically speaking, i.e., not normatively speaking,
people will find ways around identity systems. Cash is one
way, remailers are another. Enforcement of a rigid identity-
based system is difficult.
11.14.3. "Do we need "is-a-person" credentials for things like votes
on the Net?"
- That is, any sysadmin can easily create as many user
accounts as he wishes. And end users can sign up with
various services under various names. The concern is that
this Chicago-style voting (fictitious persons) may be used
to skew votes on Usenet.
- Similar concerns arise elsewhere.
- In my view, this is a mighty trivial reason to support "is-
a-person" credentials.
11.14.4. Locality, credentials, validations
+ Consider the privacy implications of something so simple as
a parking lot system. Two main approaches:
- First Approach. Cash payment. Car enters lot, driver pays
cash, a "validation" is given. No traceability exists.
(There's a small chance that one driver can give his
sticker to a new driver, and thus defraud the parking
lot. This tends not to happen, due to the inconveniences
of making a market in such stickers (coordinating with
other car, etc.) and because the sticker is relatively
inexpensive.)
- Second Approach. Billing of driver, recording of license
plates. Traceability is present, especially if the local
parking lot is tied in to credit card companies, DMV,
police, etc. (these link-ups are on the wish list of
police agencies, to further "freeze out" fugitives, child
support delinquents, and other criminals).
- These are the concerns of a society with a lot of
electronic payments but with no mechanisms for preserving
privacy. (And there is currently no great demand for this
kind of privacy, for a variety of reasons, and this
undercuts the push for anonymous credential methods.)
- An important property of true cash (gold, bank notes that
are well-trusted) is that it settles immediately, requiring
no time-binding of contracts (ability to track down the
payer and collect on a bad transaction)
11.15. Records of all UseNet postings
11.15.1. (ditto for CompuServe, GEnie, etc.) will exist
11.15.2. "What kinds of monitoring of the Net is possible?"
- Archives of all Usenet traffic. This is already done by
commercial CD-ROm suppliers, and others, so this would be
trivial for various agencies.
- Mail archives. More problematic, as mail is ostensibly not
public. But mail passes through many sites, usually in
unencrypted form.
- Traffic analysis. Connections monitored. Telnet, ftp, e-
mail, Mosaid, and other connections.
- Filtered scans of traffic, with keyword-matched text stored
in archives.
11.15.3. Records: note that private companies can do the same thing,
except that various "right to privacy" laws may try to
interfere with this
- which causes its own constitutional privacy problems, of
course
11.15.4. "How can you expect that something you sent on the UseNet to
several thousand sites will not be potentially held against
you? You gave up any pretense of privacy when you broadcast
your opinions-and even detailed declarations of your
activities-to an audience of millions. Did you really think
that these public messages weren't being filed away? Any
private citizen would find it almost straightforward to sort
a measly several megabytes a day by keywords, names of
posters, etc." [I'm not sure if I wrote this, or if someone
else who I forgot to make a note of did]
11.15.5. this issue is already coming up: a gay programmer who was
laid-off discussed his rage on one of the gay boards and said
he was thinking of turning in his former employer for
widespread copying of Autocad software...an Autodesk employee
answered him with "You just did!"
11.15.6. corporations may use GREP and On Location-like tools to
search public nets for any discussion of themselves or their
products
- by big mouth employees, by disgruntled customers, by known
critics, etc.
- even positive remarks that may be used in advertising
(subject to various laws)
11.15.7. the 100% traceability of public postings to UseNet and other
bulletin boards is very stifling to free expression and
becomes one of the main justifications for the use of
anonymous (or pseudononymous) boards and nets
- there may be calls for laws against such compilation, as
with the British data laws, but basically there is little
that can be done when postings go to tens of thousands of
machines and are archived in perpetuity by many of these
nodes and by thousands of readers
- readers who may incorporate the material into their own
postings, etc. (hence the absurdity of the British law)
11.16. Effects of Surveillance on the Spread of Crypto
11.16.1. Surveillance and monitoring will serve to increase the use of
encryption, at first by people with something to hide, and
then by others
- a snowballing effect
- and various government agencies will themselves use
encryption to protect their files and their privacy
11.16.2. for those in sensitive positions, the availability of new
bugging methods will accelerate the conversion to secure
systems based on encrypted telecommunications and the
avoidance of voice-based systems
11.16.3. Surveillance Trends
+ Technology is making citizen-unit surveillance more and
more trivial
+ video cameras on every street corners are technologically
easy to implement, for example
- or cameras in stores, in airports, in other public
places
- traffic cameras
- tracking of purchases with credit cards, driver's
licenses, etc.
- monitoring of computer emissions (TEMPEST issues, often a
matter of paranoid speculation)
+ interception of the Net...wiretapping, interception of
unencrypted communications, etc.
- and compilation of dossier entries based on public
postings
+ This all makes the efforts to head-off a person-tracking,
credentials-based society all the more urgent.
Monkeywrenching, sabotage, public education, and
development of alternatives are all needed.
- If the surveillance state grows as rapidly as it now
appears to be doing, more desperate measures may be
needed. Personally, I wouldn't shed any tears if
Washington, D.C. and environs got zapped with a terrorist
nuke; the innocents would be replaced quickly enough, and
the death of so many political ghouls would surely be
worth it. The destruction of Babylon.
+ We need to get the message about "blinded credentials"
(which can show some field, like age, without showing all
fields, including name and such) out there. More
radically, we need to cause people to question why
credentials are as important as many people seem to
think.
- I argue that credentials are rarely needed for mutually
agreed-upon transactions
11.17. Loose Ends
11.17.1. USPS involvement in electronic mail, signatures,
authentication (proposed in July-August, 1994)
+ Advantages:
- many locations
- a mission already oriented toward delivery
+ Disadvantages:
- has performed terribly, compared to allowed compettion
(Federal Express, UPS, Airborne, etc.)
- it's linked to the goverment (now quasi-independent, but
not really)
- could become mandatory, or competition restricted to
certain niches (as with the package services, which
cannot have "routes" and are not allowed to compete in
the cheap letter regime)
- a large and stultified bureaucracy, with union labor
- Links to other programs (software key escrow, Digital
Telephony) not clear, but it seems likely that a quasi-
governemt agency like the USPS would be cooperative with
government, and would place limits on the crypto systems
allowed.
11.17.2. the death threats
+ An NSA official threatened to have Jim Bidzos killed if he
did not change his position on some negotiation underway.
This was reported in the newspaper and I sought
confirmation:
- "Everything reported in the Merc News is true. I am
certain that he wasnot speaking for the agency, but when
it happened he was quite serious, at least appeared to
be. There was a long silence after he made the threat,
with a staring contest. He was quite intense.
"I respect and trust the other two who were in the room
(they were shocked and literally speechless, staring into
their laps) and plan to ask NSA for a written apology and
confirmation that he was not speaking for the agency.
We'll see if I get it. If the incident made it into
their trip reports, I have a chance of getting a letter."
[jim@RSA.COM (Jim Bidzos), personal communication, posted
with permission to talk.politics.crypto, 1994-06-28]
11.17.3. False identities...cannot just be "erased" from the computer
memory banks. The web of associations, implications, rule
firings...all mean that simple removal (or insertion of a
false identity) produces discontinuities, illogical
developments, holes...history is not easily changed.
12. Digital Cash and Net Commerce
12.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
12.2. SUMMARY: Digital Cash and Net Commerce
12.2.1. Main Points
- strong crypto makes certain forms of digital cash possible
- David Chaum is, once again, centrally involved
- no real systems deployed, only small experiments
- the legal and regulatory tangle will likely affect
deployment in major ways (making a "launch" of digital cash
a notrivial matter)
12.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
- reputations
- legal situation
- crypto anarchy
12.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
- http://digicash.support.nl/
12.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
- a huge area, filled with special terms
- many financial instruments
- the theory of digital cash is not complete, and confusion
abounds
- this section is also more jumbled and confusing than I'd
like; I'll clean it up in fufure releases.
12.3. The Nature of Money
12.3.1. The nature of money, of banking and finance, is a topic that
suffuses most discussions of digital cash. Hardly surprising.
But also an area that is even more detailed than is crypto.
And endless confusion of terms, semantic quibblings on the
list, and so on. I won't be devoting much space to trying to
explain economics, banking, and the deep nature or money.
12.3.2. There are of course many forms of cash or money today (these
terms are not equivalent...)
+ coins, bills (presumed to be difficult to forge)
- "ontological conservation laws"--the money can't be in
two places at once, can't be double spent
- this is only partly true, and forgery technology is
making it all moot
- bearer bonds and other "immediately cashable" instruments
- diamonds, gold, works of art, etc. ("portable wealth")
12.3.3. Many forms of digital money. Just as there are dozens of
major forms of instruments, so too will there be many forms
of digital money. Niches will be filled.
12.3.4. The deep nature of money is unclear to me. There are days
when I think it's just a giant con game, with value in money
only because others will accept it. Other days when I think
it's somewhat tied to "real things" like gold and silver. And
other days when I'm just unconcerned (so long as I have it,
and it works).
12.3.5. The digital cash discussions get similarly confused by the
various ideas about money. Digital cash is not necessarily a
form of _currency_, but is instead a transfer mechanism. More
like a "digital check," in fact (though it may give rise to
new currencies, or to wider use of some existing
currency...at some point, it may become indistinguishable
from a currency).
12.3.6. I advise that people not worry overly much about the true and
deep nature of money, and instead think about digital cash as
a transfer protocol for some underlyng form of money, which
might be gold coins, or Swiss francs, or chickens, or even
giant stone wheels.
12.3.7. Principle vs. Properties of Money
- Physical coins, as money, have certain basic properties:
difficult to counterfeit, pointless to counterfeit if made
of gold or silver, fungibility, immediate settling (no need
to clear with a distant bank, no delays, etc.),
untraceability, etc.
- Digital cash, in various flavors, has dramatically
different properties, e.g., it may require clearing, any
single digtital note is infinitely copyable, it may allow
traceability, etc. A complicated mix of properties.
+ But why is physical money (specie) the way it is? What
properties account for this? What are the core principles
that imply these properties?
- hardware (specie like gold) vs. software (bits, readily
copyable)
- immediale, local clearing, because of rational faith that
the money will clear
- limits on rate of transfer of physical money set by size,
weight of money, whereas "wire fraud" and variants can
drain an account in seconds
- My notion is that we spend too much time thinking about the
_principles_ (such as locality, transitivity, etc.) and
expect to then _derive_ the properties. Maybe we need to
instead focus on the _objects_, the sets of protocol-
derived things, and examine their emergent properties. (I
have my own thinking along these lines, involving "protocol
ecologies" in which agents bang against each other, a la
Doug Lenat's old "Eurisko" system, and thus discover
weaknesses, points of strength, and even are genetically
programmed to add new methods which increase security.
This, as you can guess, is a longterm, speculative
project.)
12.3.8. "Can a "digital coin" be made?"
- The answer appears to be "no"
+ Software is infinitely copyable, which means a software
representation of digital money could be replicated many
times
- this is not to say it could be _spent_ many times,
depending on the clearing process...but then this is not
a "coin" in the sense we mean
- Software is trivially replicable, unlike gold or silver
coins, or even paper currency. If and when paper currency
becomes trivially replicable (and color copiers have almost
gotten there), expect changes in the nature of cash.
(Speculation: cash will be replaced by smart cards,
probably not of the anonymous sort we favor.)
+ bits can always be duplicated (unless tied to hardware, as
with TRMs), so must look elsewhere
+ could tie the bits to a specific location, so that
duplication would be obvious or useless
- the idea is vaguely that an agent could be placed in
some location...duplications would be both detectable
and irrelevant (same bits, same behavior, unmodifiable
because of digital signature)
- (this is formally similar to the idea of an active agent
that is unforgeable, in the sense that the agent or coin is
"standalone")
12.3.9. "What is the 'granularity' of digital cash?"
+ fine granularity, e.g., sub-cent amounts
- useful for many online transactions
- inside computers
- add-on fees by interemediaries
- very small purchases
+ medium granularity
- a few cents, up to a dollar (for example)
- also useful for many small purchases
- close equivalent to "loose change" or small bills, and
probably useful for the same purposes
- tolls, fees, etc.
- This is roughly the level many DigiCash protocols are
aimed at
+ large granularity
- multiple dollars
- more like a "conventional" online transaction
-
- the transaction costs are crucial; online vs. offline
clearing
- Digital Silk Road is a proposal by Dean Tribble and Norm
Hardy to reduce transaction costs
12.3.10. Debate about money and finance gets complicated
- legal terms, specific accounting jargon, etc.
- I won't venture into this thicket here. It's a specialty
unto itself, with several dozen major types of instruments
and derivatives. And of course with big doses of the law.
12.4. Smart Cards
12.4.1. "What are smart cards and how are they used?"
+ Most smart cards as they now exist are very far from being
the anonymous digital cash of primary interest to us. In
fact, most of them are just glorified credit cards.
- with no gain to consumers, since consumes typically don't
pay for losses by fraud
- (so to entice consumes, will they offer inducements?)
- Can be either small computers, typically credit-card-sized,
or just cards that control access via local computers.
+ Tamper-resistant modules, e.g., if tampered with, they
destroy the important data or at the least give evidence of
having been tampered with.
+ Security of manufacturing
- some variant of "cut-and-choose" inspection of
premises
+ Uses of smart cards
- conventional credit card uses
- bill payment
- postage
- bridge and road tolls
- payments for items received electronically (not
necessarily anonymously)
12.4.2. Visa Electronic Purse
12.4.3. Mondex
12.5. David Chaum's "DigiCash"
12.5.1. "Why is Chaum so important to digital cash?"
- Chaum's name appears frequently in this document, and in
other Cypherpunk writings. He is without a doubt the
seminal thinker in this area, having been very nearly the
first to write about several areas: untraceable e-mail,
digital cash, blinding, unlinkable credentials, DC-nets,
etc.
- I spoke to him at the 1988 "Crypto" conference, telling him
about my interests, my 'labyrinth' idea for mail-forwarding
(which he had anticipated in 1981, unbeknownst to me at the
time), and a few hints about "crypto anarchy." It was clear
to me that Chaum had thought long and deeply about these
issues.
- Chaum's articles should be read by all interested in this
area. (No, his papers are _not_ "on-line." Please see the
"Crypto" Proceedings and related materials.)
- [DIGICASH PRESS RELEASE, "World's first electronic cash
payment over computer networks," 1994-05-27]
12.5.2. "What's his motivation?"
- Chaum appears to be a libertarian, at least on social
issues, and is very worried about "Big Brother" sorts of
concerns (recall the title of his 1985 CACM article).
- His work in Europe has mostly concentrated on unlinkable
credentials for toll road payments, electronic voting, etc.
His company, DigiCash, is working on various aspects of
digital cash.
12.5.3. "How does his system work?"
- There have been many summaries on the Cypherpunks list. Hal
Finney has written at least half a dozen, and others have
been contributed by Eric Hughes, Karl Barrus, etc. I won't
be including any of them here....it just takes too many
pages to explain how digital cash works in detail.
- (The biggest problem people have with digital cash is in
not taking the time to understand the basics of the math,
of blinding, etc. They wrongly assume that "digital cash"
can be understood by common-sense reasoning about existing
cash, etc. This mistake has been repeated in several of the
half-assed proposals for "net cash" and "digi dollars.")
+ Here's the opening few paragraphs from one of Hal's
explanations, to provide a glimpse:
- "Mike Ingle asks about digicash. The simplest system I
know of that is anonymous is the one by Chaum, Fiat, and
Naor, which we have discussed here a few times. The idea
is that the bank chooses an RSA modulus, and a set of
exponents e1, e2, e3, ..., where each exponent ei
represents
a denomination and possibly a date. The exponents must
be relatively prime to (p-1)(q-1). PGP has a GCD routine
which can be used to check for valid exponents..
"As with RSA, to each public exponent ei corresponds a
secret exponent di, calculated as the multiplicative
inverse of ei mod (p-1)(q-1). Again, PGP has a routine
to calculate multiplicative inverses.
"In this system, a piece of cash is a pair (x, f(x)^di),
where f() is a one-way function. MD5 would be a
reasonable choice for f(), but notice that it produces a
128-bit result. f() should take this 128-bit output of
MD5 and "reblock" it to be an multi-precision number by
padding it; PGP has a "preblock" routine which does this,
following the PKCS standard.
"The way the process works, with the blinding, is like
this. The user chooses a random x. This should probably
be at least 64 or 128 bits, enough to preclude exhaustive
search. He calculates f(x), which is what he wants the
bank to sign by raising to the power di. But rather than
sending f(x) to the bank directly, the user first blinds
it by choosing a random number r, and calculating D=f(x)
* r^ei. (I should make it clear that ^ is the power
operator, not xor.) D is what he sends to the bank,
along with some information about what ei is, which tells
the denomination of the cash, and also information about
his account number." [Hal Finney, 1993-12-04]
12.5.4. "What is happening with DigiCash?"
- "Payment from any personal computer to any other
workstation, over email or Internet, has been demonstrated
for the first time, using electronic cash technology. "You
can pay for access to a database, buy software or a
newsletter by email, play a computer game over the net,
receive $5 owed you by a friend, or just order a pizza. The
possibilities are truly unlimited" according to David
Chaum, Managing Director of DigiCash TM, who announced and
demonstrated the product during his keynote address at the
first conference on the World Wide Web, in Geneva this
week." [DIGICASH PRESS RELEASE, "World's first electronic
cash payment over computer networks," 1994-05-27]
- DigiCash is David Chaum's company, set up to commercialize
this work. Located near Amsterdam.
+ Chaum is also centrally invovled in "CAFE," a European
committee investigating ways to deploy digital cash in
Europe
- mostly standards, issues of privacy, etc.
- toll roads, ferries, parking meters, etc.
- http://digicash.support.nl/
- info@digicash.nl
- People have been reporting that their inquiries are not
being answered; could be for several reasons.
12.5.5. The Complexities of Digital Cash
- There is no doubt as to the complexity: many protocols,
semantic confusion, many parties, chances for collusion,
spoofing, repudiation, and the like. And many derivative
entities: agents, escrow services, banks.
- There's no substitute for _thinking hard_ about various
scenarios. Thinking about how to arrange off-line clearing,
how to handle claims of people who claim their digital
money was stolen, people who want various special kinds of
services, such as receipts, and so on. It's an ecology
here, not just a set of simple equations.
12.6. Online and Offline Clearing, Double Spending
12.6.1. (this section still under construction)
12.6.2. This is one of the main points of division between systems.
12.6.3. Online Clearing
- (insert explanation)
12.6.4. Offline Clearing
- (insert explanation)
12.6.5. Double spending
- Some approaches involve constantly-growing-in-size coins at
each transfer, so who spent the money first can be deduced
(or variants of this). And N. Ferguson developed a system
allowing up to N expenditures of the same coin, where N is
a parameter. [Howard Gayle reminded me of this, 1994-08-29]
- "Why does everyone think that the law must immediately be
invoked when double spending is detected?....Double
spending is an informational property of digital cash
systems. Need we find malicious intent in a formal
property? The obvious moralism about the law and double
spenders is inappropriate. It evokes images of revenge and
retribution, which are stupid, not to mention of negative
economic value." [Eric Hughes, 1994-08-27] (This also
relates to Eric's good point that we too often frame crypto
issue in terms of loaded terms like "cheating," "spoofing,"
and "enemies," when more neutral terms would carry less
meaning-obscuring baggage and would not give our "enemies"
(:-}) the ammunition to pass laws based on such terms.)
12.6.6. Issues
+ Chaum's double-spending detection systems
- Chaum went to great lengths to develop system which
preserve anonymity for single-spending instances, but
which break anonymity and thus reveal identity for double-
spending instances. I'm not sure what market forces
caused him to think about this as being so important, but
it creates many headaches. Besides being clumsy, it
require physical ID, it invokes a legal system to try to
collect from "double spenders," and it admits the
extremely serious breach of privacy by enabling stings.
For example, Alice pays Bob a unit of money, then quickly
Alice spends that money before Bob can...Bob is then
revealed as a "double spender," and his identity revealed
to whomver wanted it...Alice, IRS, Gestapo, etc. A very
broken idea. Acceptable mainly for small transactions.
+ Multi-spending vs. on-line clearing
- I favor on-line clearing. Simply put: the first spending
is the only spending. The guy who gets to the train
locker where the cash is stored is the guy who gets it.
This ensure that the burden of maintaining the secret is
on the secret holder.
- When Alice and Bob transfer money, Alice makes the
transfer, Bob confirms it as valid (or verifies that his
bank has received the deposit), and the transaction is
complete.
- With network speeds increasing dramatically, on-line
clearing should be feasible for most transactions. Off-
line systems may of course be useful, especially for
small transactions, the ones now handled with coins and
small bills.
-
12.6.7. "How does on-line clearing of anonymous digital cash work?"
- There's a lot of math connected with blinding,
exponentions, etc. See Schneier's book for an introduction,
or the various papers of Chaum, Brands, Bos, etc.
- On-line clearing is similar to two parties in a transaction
exchanging goods and money. The transaction is clearled
locally, and immediately. Or they could arrange transfer of
funds at a bank, and the banker could tell them over the
phone that the transaction has cleared--true "on-line
clearing." Debit cards work this way, with money
transferred effectively immediately out of one account and
into another. Credit cards have some additional wrinkles,
such as the credit aspect, but are basically still on-line
clearing.
- Conceptually, the guiding principle idea is simple: he who
gets to the train locker where the cash is stored *first*
gets the cash. There can never be "double spending," only
people who get to the locker and find no cash inside.
Chaumian blinding allows the "train locker" (e.g., Credit
Suisse) to give the money to the entity making the claim
without knowing how the number correlates to previous
numbers they "sold" to other entities. Anonymity is
preserved, absolutely. (Ignoring for this discussion issues
of cameras watching the cash pickup, if it ever actually
gets picked up.)
- Once the "handshaking" of on-line clearing is accepted,
based on the "first to the money gets it" principle, then
networks of such clearinghouses can thrive, as each is
confident about clearing. (There are some important things
needed to provide what I'll dub "closure" to the circuit.
People need to ping the system, depositing and withdrawing,
to establish both confidence and cover. A lot like remailer
networks. In fact, very much like them.)
- In on-line clearing, only a number is needed to make a
transfer. Conceptually, that is. Just a number. It is up to
the holder of the number to protect it carefully, which is
as it should be (for reasons of locality, or self-
responsibility, and because any other option introduces
repudiation, disavowal, and the "Twinkies made me do it"
sorts of nonsense). Once the number is transferred and
reblinded, the old number no longer has a claim on the
money stored at Credit Suisse, for example. That money is
now out of the train locker and into a new one. (People
always ask, "But where is the money, really?" I see digital
cash as *claims* on accounts in existing money-holding
places, typically banks. There are all kinds of "claims"--
Eric Hughes has regaled us with tales of his explorations
of the world of commericial paper. My use of the term
"claim" here is of the "You present the right number, you
get access" kind. Like the combination to a safe. The train
locker idea makes this clearer, and gets around the
confusion about "digimarks" of "e$" actually _being_ any
kind of money it and of itself.)
12.7. Uses for Digital Cash
12.7.1. Uses for digital cash?
- Privacy protection
- Preventing tracking of movements, contacts, preferences
+ Illegal markets
- gambling
- bribes, payoffs
- assassinations and other contract crimes
- fencing, purchases of goods
+ Tax avoidance
- income hiding
- offshore funds transfers
- illegal markets
- Online services, games, etc.
+ Agoric markets, such as for allocation of computer
resources
- where programs, agents "pay" for services used, make
"bids" for future services, collect "rent," etc.
+ Road tolls, parking fees, where unlinkablity is desired.
This press release excerpt should give the flavor of
intended uses for road tolls:
- "The product was developed by DigiCash TM Corporation's
wholly owned Dutch subsidiary, DigiCash TM BV. It is
related to the firm's earlier released product for road
pricing, which has been licensed to Amtech TM
Corporation, of Dallas, Texas, worldwide leader in
automatic road toll collection. This system allows
privacy protected payments for road use at full highway
speed from a smart card reader affixed to the inside of a
vehicle. Also related is the approach of the EU supported
CAFE project, of which Dr. Chaum is Chairman, which uses
tamper-resistant chips inserted into electronic wallets."
[DIGICASH PRESS RELEASE, "World's first electronic cash
payment over computer networks," 1994-05-27]
12.7.2. "What are some motivations for anonymous digital cash?"
+ Payments that are unlinkable to identity, especially for
things like highway tolls, bridge tolls, etc.
- where linkablity would imply position tracking
- (Why not use coins? This idea is for "smart card"-type
payment systems, involving wireless communication.
Singapore planned (and perhaps has implemented) such a
system, except there were no privacy considerations.)
+ Pay for things while using pseudonyms
- no point in having a pseudonym if the payment system
reveals one's identity
+ Tax avoidance
- this is the one the digicash proponents don't like to
talk about too loudly, but it's obviously a time-honored
concern of all taxpayers
+ Because there is no compelling reason why money should be
linked to personal identity
- a general point, subsuming others
12.8. Other Digital Money Systems
12.8.1. "There seem to be many variants....what's the story?"
- Lots of confusion. Lots of systems that are not at all
anonymous, that are just extensions of existing systems.
The cachet of digital cash is such that many people are
claiming their systems are "digital cash," when of course
they are not (at least not in the Chaum/Cypherpunk sense).
- So, be careful. Caveat emptor.
12.8.2. Crypto and Credit Cards (and on-line clearing)
+ Cryptographically secure digital cash may find a major use
in effectively extending the modality of credit cards to
low-level, person-to-person transactions.
- That is, the convenience of credit cards is one of their
main uses (others being the advancing of actual credit,
ignored here). In fact, secured credit cards and debit
cards don't offer this advancement of credit, but are
mainly used to accrue the "order by phone" and "avoid
carrying cash" advantages.
- Checks offer the "don't carry cash" advantage, but take
time to clear. Traveller's checks are a more pure form of
this.
- But individuals (like Alice and Bob) cannot presently use
the credit card system for mutual transactions. I'm not
sure of all the reasons. How might this change?
- Crypto can allow unforgeable systems, via some variant of
digital signatures. That is, Alice can accept a phoned
payment from Bob without ever being able to sign Bob's
electronic signature herself.
- "Crypto Credit Cards" could allow end users (customers, in
today's system) to handle transactions like this, without
having merchants as intermediaries.
- I'm sure the existing credit card outfits would have
something to say about this, and there may be various
roadblocks in the way. It might be best to buy off the VISA
and MasterCard folks by working through them. (And they
probably have studied this issue; what may change their
positions is strong crypto, locally available to users.)
- (On-line clearing--to prevent double-spending and copying
of cash--is an important aspect of many digital cash
protocols, and of VISA-type protocols. Fortunately,
networks are becoming ubiquitous and fast. Home use is
still a can of worms, though, with competing standards
based on video cable, fiber optics, ISDN, ATM, etc.)
12.8.3. Many systems being floated. Here's a sampling:
+ Mondex
- "Unlike most other electronic purse systems, Mondex, like
cash, is anonymous. The banks that issue Mondex cards
will not be able to keep track of who gets the payments.
Indeed, it is the only system in which two card holders
can transfer money to each other.
""If you want to have a product that replaces cash, you
have to do everything that cash does, only better,"
Mondex's senior executive, Michael Keegan said. "You can
give money to your brother who gives it to the chap that
sells newspapers, who gives it to charity, who puts it in
the bank, which has no idea where it's been. That's what
money is."" [New York Times, 1994-09-06, provided by John
Young]
+ CommerceNet
- allows Internet users to buy and sell goods.
- "I read in yesterday's L.A. Times about something called
CommerceNet, where sellers and buyers of workstation
level equipment can meet and conduct busniess....Near the
end of the article, they talked about a proposed method
for exchanging "digital signatures" via Moasic (so that
buyers and sellers could _know_ that they were who they
said they were) and that they were going to "submit it to
the Internet Standards body"" [Cypher1@aol.com, 1994-06-
23]
+ NetCash
- paper published at 1st ACM Conference on Computer and
Communications Security, Nov. 93, available via anonymous
ftp from PROSPERO.ISI.EDU as /pub/papers/security/netcash-
cccs93.ps.Z
- "NetCash: A design for practical electronic currency on
the Internet ... Gennady Medvinsky and Clifford Neuman
"NetCash is a framework that supports realtime electronic
payments with provision of anonymity over an unsecure
network. It is designed to enable new types of services
on the Internet which have not been practical to date
because of the absence of a secure, scalable, potentially
anonymous payment method.
"NetCash strikes a balance between unconditionally
anonymous electronic currency, and signed instruments
analogous to checks that are more scalable but identify
the principals in a transaction. It does this by
providing the framework within which proposed electronic
currency protocols can be integrated with the scalable,
but non-anonymous, electronic banking infrastructure that
has been proposed for routine transactions."
+ Hal Finney had a negative reaction to their system:
- "I didn't think it was any good. They have an
incredibly simplistic model, and their "protocols" are
of the order, A sends the bank some paper money, and B
sends A some electronic cash in return.....They don't
even do blinding of the cash. Each piece of cash has a
unique serial number which is known to the currency
provider. This would of course allow matching of
withdrawn and deposited coins....These guys seem to
have read the work in the field (they reference it) but
they don't appear to have understood it." [Hal Finney,
1993-08-17]
+ VISA Electronic Purse
- (A lot of stuff appeared on this, including listings of
the alliance partners (like Verifone), the technology,
the plans for deployment, etc. I regret that I can't
include more here. Maybe when this FAQ is a Web doc, more
can be included.)
- "PERSONAL FINANCE - Seeking the Card That Would Create A
Cashless World. The Washington Post, April 03, 1994,
FINAL Edition By: Albert B. Crenshaw, Washington Post ...
"Now that credit cards are in the hands of virtually
every living, breathing adult in the country-not to
mention a lot of children and the occasional family pet-
and now that almost as many people have ATM cards,
card companies are wondering where future growth will
come from.
"At *Visa* International, the answer is: Replace cash
with plastic.
"Last month, the giant association of card issuers
announced it had formed a coalition of banking and
technology companies to develop technical standards for
a product it dubbed the "Electronic Purse," a plastic
card meant to replace coins and bills in small
transactions." [provided by Duncan Frissell, 1994-04-05]
- The talk of "clearinghouses" and the involvement of VISA
International and the Usual Suspects suggest
identity-blinding protocols are not in use. I also see no
mention of DigiCash, or even RSA (but maybe I missed that-
-and the presence of RSA would not necessairly mean
identity-blinding protocols were being planned).
Likely Scenario: This is *not* digital cash as we think
of it. Rather, this is a future evolution of the cash ATM
card and credit card, optimized for faster and cheaper
clearing.
Scary Scenario: This could be the vehicle for the long-
rumored "banning of cash." (Just because conspiracy
theorists and Number of the Beast Xtian fundamentalists
belive it doesn't render it implausible.)
- Almost nothing of interest for us. No methods for
anonymity. Make no mistake, this is not the digital cash
that Cypherpunks espouse. This gives the credit agencies
and the government (the two work hand in hand) complete
traceability of all purchases, automatic reporting of
spending patterns, target lists for those who frequent
about-to-be-outlawed businesses, and invasive
surveillance of all inter-personal economic transactions.
This is the AntiCash. Beware the Number of the AntiCash.
12.8.4. Nick Szabo:
- "Internet commercialization in itself is a _huge_ issue
full of pitfall and opportunity: Mom & Pop BBS's,
commercial MUDs, data banks, for-profit pirate and porn
boards, etc. are springing up everywhere like weeds,
opening a vast array of both needs of privacy and ways to
abuse privacy. Remailers, digital cash, etc. won't become
part of this Internet commerce way of life unless they are
deployed soon, theoretical flaws and all, instead of
waiting until The Perfect System comes along. Crypto-
anarchy in the real world will be messy, "nature red in
tooth and claw", not all nice and clean like it says in the
math books. Most of thedebugging will be done not in any
ivory tower, but by the bankruptcy of businesses who
violate their customer's privacy, the confiscation of BBS
operators who stray outside the laws of some jurisdication
and screw up their privacy arrangements, etc. Anybody who
thinks they can flesh out a protocol in secret and then
deploy it, full-blown and working, is in for a world of
hurt. For those who get their Pretty Good systems out
there and used, there is vast potential for business growth
-- think of the $trillions confiscated every year by
governments around the world, for example." [Nick Szabo,
1993-8-23]
12.8.5. "What about _non-anonymous_ digital cash?"
- a la the various extensions of existing credit and debit
cards, traveller's checks, etc.
+ There's still a use for this, with several motivations"
* for users, it may be _cheaper_ (lower transaction costs)
than fully anonymous digital cash
* for banks, it may also be cheaper
* users may wish audit trails, proof, etc.
* and of course governments have various reasons for
wanting traceable cash systems
- law enforcement
- taxes, surfacing the underground economy
12.8.6. Microsoft plans to enter the home banking business
- "PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. wants to replace
your checkbook with a home computer that lets the bank do
all the work of recording checks, tallying up credit card
charges and paying bills.... The service also tracks credit
card accounts, withdrawals from automated teller machines,
transfers from savings or other accounts, credit lines,
debit cards, stocks and other investments, and bill
payments." [Associated Press, 1994-07-04]
- Planned links with a consortium of banks, led by U.S.
Bancorp, using its "Money" software package.
- Comment: Such moves as this--and don't forget the cable
companies--could result in a rapid transition to a form of
home banking and "digital money." Obviously this kind of
digital money, as it is being planned today, is very from
the kind of digital cash that interests us. In fact, it is
the polar opposite of what we want.
12.8.7. Credit card clearing...individuals can't use the system
- if something nonanonymous like credit cards cannot be used
by end users (Alice and Bob), why would we expect an
anonymous version of this would be either easier to use or
more possible?
- (And giving users encrypted links to credit agencies would
at least stop the security problems with giving credit card
numbers out over links that can be observed.)
- Mondex claims their system will allow this kind of person-
to-person transfer of anonymous digital cash (I'll believe
it when I see it).
12.9. Legal Issues with Digital Cash
10.8.1. "What's the legal status of digital cash?"
- It hasn't been tested, like a lot of crypto protocols. It
may be many years before these systems are tested.
10.8.2. "Is there a tie between digital cash and money laundering?"
- There doesn't have to be, but many of us believe the
widespread deployment of digital, untraceable cash will
make possible new approaches
- Hence the importance of digital cash for crypto anarchy and
related ideas.
- (In case it isn't obvious, I consider money-laundering a
non-crime.)
10.8.3. "Is it true the government of the U.S. can limit funds
transfers outside the U.S.?"
- Many issues here. Certainly some laws exist. Certainly
people are prosecuted every day for violating currency
export laws. Many avenues exist.
- "LEGALITY - There isn't and will never be a law restricting
the sending of funds outside the United States. How do I
know? Simple. As a country dependant on international
trade (billions of dollars a year and counting), the
American economy would be destroyed." [David Johnson,
privacy@well.sf.ca.us, "Offshore Banking & Privacy,"
alt.privacy, 1994-07-05]
10.8.4. "Are "alternative currencies" allowed in the U.S.? And what's
the implication for digital cash of various forms?
- Tokens, coupons, gift certificates are allowed, but face
various regulations. Casino chips were once treated as
cash, but are now more regulated (inter-casino conversion
is no longer allowed).
- Any attempt to use such coupons as an alternative currency
face obstacles. The coupons may be allowed, but heavily
regulated (reporting requirements, etc.).
- Perry Metzger notes, bearer bonds are now illegal in the
U.S. (a bearer bond represented cash, in that no name was
attached to the bond--the "bearer" could sell it for cash
or redeem it...worked great for transporting large amounts
of cash in compact form).
+ Note: Duncan Frissell claims that bearer bonds are _not_
illegal.
- "Under the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of
1982 (TEFRA), any interest payments made on *new* issues
of domestic bearer bonds are not deductible as an
ordinary and necessary business expense so none have been
issued since then. At the same time, the Feds
administratively stopped issuing treasury securities in
bearer form. Old issues of government and corporate debt
in bearer form still exist and will exist and trade for
30 or more years after 1982. Additionally, US residents
can legally buy foreign bearer securities." [Duncan
Frissell, 1994-08-10]
- Someone else has a slightly different view: "The last US
Bearer Bond issues mature in 1997. I also believe that to
collect interest, and to redeem the bond at maturity, you
must give your name and tax-id number to the paying
agent. (I can check with the department here that handles
it if anyone is interested in the pertinent OCC regs that
apply)" [prig0011@gold.tc.umn.edu, 1994-08-10]
- I cite this gory detail to give readers some idea about
how much confusion there is about these subjects. The
usual advice is to "seek competent counsel," but in fact
most lawyers have no clear ideas about the optimum
strategies, and the run-of-the-mill advisor may mislead
one dangerously. Tread carefully.
- This has implications for digital cash, of course.
10.8.5. "Why might digital cash and related techologies take hold
early in illegal markets? That is, will the Mob be an early
adopter?"
- untraceability needed
- and reputations matter to them
- they've shown in the past that they will try new
approaches, a la the money movements of the drug cartels,
novel methods for security, etc.
10.8.6. "Electronic cash...will it have to comply with laws, and
how?"
- Concerns will be raised about the anonymity aspects, the
usefulness for evading taxes and reporting requirements,
etc.
- a messy issue, sure to be debated and legislated about for
many years
+ split the cash into many pieces...is this "structuring"? is
it legal?
- some rules indicate the structuring per se is not
illegal, only tax evasion or currency control evasion
- what then of systems which _automatically_, as a basic
feature, split the cash up into multiple pieces and move
them?
10.8.7. Currency controls, flight capital regulations, boycotts,
asset seizures, etc.
- all are pressures to find alternate ways for capital to
flow
- all add to the lack of confidence, which, paradoxically to
lawmakers, makes capital flight all the more likely
10.8.8. "Will banking regulators allow digital cash?"
- Not easily, that's for sure. The maze of regulations,
restrictions, tax laws, and legal rulings is daunting. Eric
Hughes spent a lot of time reading up on the laws regarding
banks, commercial paper, taxes, etc., and concluded much
the same. I'm not saying it's impossible--indeed, I believe
it will someday happen, in some form--but the obstacles are
formidable.
+ Some issues:
+ Will such an operation be allowed to be centered or based
in the U.S.?
- What states? What laws? Bank vs. Savings and Loan vs.
Credit Union vs. Securities Broker vs. something else?
+ Will customers be able to access such entities offshore,
outside the U.S.?
- strong crypto makes communication possible, but it may
be difficult, not part of the business fabric, etc.
(and hence not so useful--if one has to send PGP-
encrypted instructions to one's banker, and can't use
the clearing infrastructure....)
+ Tax collection, money-laundering laws, disclosure laws,
"know your customer" laws....all are areas where a
"digital bank" could be shut down forthwith. Any bank not
filling out the proper forms (including mandatory
reporting of transactions of certain amounts and types,
and the Social Security/Taxpayer Number of customers)
faces huge fines, penalties, and regulatory sanctions.
- and the existing players in the banking and securities
business will not sit idly by while newcomers enter
their market; they will seek to force newcomers to jump
through the same hoops they had to (studies indicate
large corporations actually _like_ red tape, as it
helps them relative to smaller companies)
- Concluson: Digital banks will not be "launched" without a
*lot* of work by lawyers, accountants, tax experts,
lobbyists, etc. "Lemonade stand digital banks" (TM) will
not survive for long. Kids, don't try this at home!
- (Many new industries we are familiar with--software,
microcomputers--had very little regulation, rightly so. But
the effect is that many of us are unprepared to understand
the massive amount of red tape which businesses in other
areas, notably banking, face.)
10.8.9. Legal obstacles to digital money. If governments don't want
anonymous cash, they can make things tough.
+ As both Perry Metzger and Eric Hughes have said many times,
regulations can make life very difficult. Compliance with
laws is a major cost of doing business.
- ~"The cost of compliance in a typical USA bank is 14% of
operating costs."~ [Eric Hughes, citing an "American
Banker" article, 1994-08-30]
+ The maze of regulations is navigable by larger
institutions, with staffs of lawyers, accountants, tax
specialists, etc., but is essentially beyond the
capabilities of very small institutions, at least in the
U.S.
- this may or may not remain the case, as computers
proliferate. A "bank-in-a-box" program might help. My
suspicion is that a certain size of staff is needed just
to handle the face-to-face meetings and hoop-jumping.
+ "New World Order"
- U.S. urging other countries to "play ball" on banking
secrecy, on tax evasion extradition, on immigration, etc.
- this is closing off the former loopholes and escape
hatches that allowed people to escape repressive
taxation...the implications for digital money banks are
unclear, but worrisome.
12.10. Prospects for Digital Cash Use
12.10.1. "If digital money is so great, why isn't it being used?"
- Hasn't been finished. Protocols are still being researched,
papers are still being published. In any single area, such
as toll road payments, it may be possible to deploy an
application-specific system, but there is no "general"
solution (yet). There is no "digital coin" or unforgeable
object representing value, so the digital money area is
more similar to the similarly nonsimple markets in
financial instruments, commercial papers, bonds, warrants,
checks, etc. (Areas that are not inherently simple and that
have required lots of computerization and communications to
make manageable.)
- Flakiness of Nets. Systems crash, mail gets delayed
inexplicably, subscriptions to lists get lunched, and all
sorts of other breakages occur. Most interaction on the
Nets involves a fair amount of human adaptation to changing
conditions, screwups, workarounds, etc. These are not
conditions that inspire confidence in automated money
systems!
- Hard to Use. Few people will use systems that require
generating code, clients, etc. Semantic gap (generating
stuff on a Unix workstation is not at all like taking one's
checkbook out). Protocols in crypto are generally hard to
use and confusing.
- Lack of compelling need. Although people have tried various
experiments with digital money tokens or coupons (Magic
Money/Tacky Tokens, the HeX market, etc.), there is little
real world incentive to experiment with them. And most of
the denominated tokens are for truly trivial amounts of
money, not for anything worth spending time learning. No
marketplace for buyers to "wander around in." (You don't
buy what you don't see.)
- Legal issues. The IRS does not look favorably on
alternative currencies, especially if used in attempts to
bypass ordinary tax collection schemes. This and related
legal issues (redemptions into dollars) put a roadblock in
front of serious plans to use digital money.
- Research Issues. Not all problems resolved. Still being
developed, papers being published. Chaum's system does not
seem to be fully ready for deployment, certainly not
outside of well-defined vertical markets.
12.10.2. "Why isn't digital money in use?"
- The Meta Issue: *what* digital money? Various attempts at
digital cash or digital money exist, but most are flawed,
experimental, crufty, etc. Chaum's DigiCash was announced
(Web page, etc.), but is apparently not even remotely
usable.
+ Practical Reasons:
- nothing to buy
- no standard systems that are straightforward to use
- advantages of anonymity and untraceability are seldom
exploited
- The Magic Money/Tacky Tokens experiment on the Cypherpunks
list is instrucive. Lots of detailed work, lots of posts--
and yet not used for anything (granted, there's not much
being bought and sold on the List, so...).
- Scenario for Use in the Near Future: A vertical
application, such as a bridge toll system that offers
anonymity. In a vertical app, the issues of compatibility,
interfaces, and training can be managed.
12.10.3. "why isn't digital cash being used?"
+ many reasons, too many reasons!
+ hard issues, murky issues
- technical developments not final, Chaum, Brands, etc.
+ selling the users
- who don't have computers, PDAs, the means to do the
local computations
- who want portable versions of the same
+ The infrastructure for digital money (Chaum anonymous-
style, and variants, such as Brands) does not now exist,
and may not exist for several more years. (Of course, I
thought it would take "several more years" back in 1988,
so what do I know?)
- The issues are familiar: lack of standards, lack of
protocols, lack of customer experience, and likely
regulatory hurdles. A daunting prospect.
- Any "launches" will either have to be well-funded, well-
planned, or done sub rosa, in some quasi-legal or even
illegal market (such as gambling).
- "The american people keep claiming in polls that they want
better privacy protection, but the fact is that most aren't
willing to do anything about it: it's just a preference,
not a solid imperative. Until something Really Bad happens
to many people as a result of privacy loss, I really don't
think much will be done that requires real work and
inconvenience from people, like moving to something other
than credit cards for long-distance transactions... and
that's a tragedy."[L. Todd Masco , 1994-08-20]
12.10.4. "Is strong crypto needed for digital cash?"
- Yes, for the most bulletproof form, the form of greatest
interest to us and especially for agents, autonomous
systems
+ No, for certain weak versions (non-cryptographic methods of
security, access control, biometric security, etc. methods)
- for example, Internet billing is not usually done with
crypto
- and numbered Swiss accounts can be seen as a weak form of
digital cash (with some missing features)
- "warehouse receipts," as in gold or currency shipments
12.10.5. on why we may not have it for a while, from a non-Cypherpunk
commenter:
- "Government requires information on money flows, taxable
items, and large financial transactions.....As a result, it
would be nearly impossible to set up a modern anonymous
digital cash system, despite the fact that we have the
technology.....I think we have more of a right to privacy
with digicash transactions, and I also think there is a
market for anonymous digicash systems. " [Thomas Grant
Edwards. talk.politics.crypto, 1994-09-06]
12.10.6. "Why do a lot of schemes for things like digital money have
problems on the Net?
+ Many reasons
- lack of commercial infrastructure in general on the
Net...people are not used to buying things, advertising
is discouraged (or worse), and almost everything is
"free."
- lack of robustness and completeness in the various
protocols: they are "not ready for prime time" in most
cases (PGP is solid, and some good shells exist for PGP,
but the many other crypto protocols are mostly not
implemented at all, at least not widely).
+ The Net runs "open-loop," as a store-and-forward delivery
system
- The Net is mostly a store-and-forward netword, at least
at the granularity seen by the user in sending
messages, and hence is "open loop." Messages may or may
not be received in a timely way, and there is little
opportunity for negotiaton on a real-time basis.
- This open-loop nature usually works...messages get
through most of the time. And the "message in a bottle"
nature fits in with anonymous remailers (with
latency/delay), with message pools, and with other
schemes to make traffic analysis harder. A "closed-
loop," responsive system is likelier to be traffic-
analyzed by correlation of packets, etc.
- but the sender does not know if it gets through (return
receipts not commonly implemented...might be a nice
feature to incorporate; agent-based systems
(Telescript?) will certainly do this)
- this open-loop nature makes protocols, negotiation,
digital cash very tough to use--too much human
intervention needed
- Note: These comments apply mainly to _mail_ systems,
which is where most of us have experimented with these
ideas. Non-mail systems, such as Mosaic or telnet or
the like, have better or faster feedback mechanisms and
may be preferable for implementation of Cypherpunks
goals. It may be that the natural focus on mailing
lists, e-mail, etc., has distracted us. Perhaps a focus
on MUDs, or even on ftp, would have been more
fruitful...but we're a mailing list, and most people
are much more familiar with e-mail than with archie or
gopher or WAIS, etc.
- The legal and regulatory obstacles to a real system, used
for real transactions, are formidable. (The obstacles to
a "play" system are not so severe, but then play systems
tend not to get much developer attention.)
12.10.7. Scenario for deployment of digital cash
- Eric Hughes has spent time looking into this. Too many
issues to go into here, but he had this interesting
scenario, repeated almost in toto here:
- "It's very unlikely that a USA bank will be the one to
deploy anonymous digital dollars first. It's much more
likely that the first dollar digital cash will be issued
overseas, possibly London. By the same token, the non-
dollar regulation on banks in this country is not the same
as the dollar regulation, so it's quite possible that the
New York banks may be the first issuers of digital cash, in
pounds sterling, say.
"There will be two stages in actually deploying digital
cash. By digital cash, here, I mean a retail phenomenon,
available anybody. The first will be to digitize money, and
the second will be to anonymize it. Efforts are already
well underway to make more-or-less secure digital funds
transfers with reasonably low transaction fees (not
transaction costs, which are much more than just fees).
These efforts, as long as they retain some traceability,
will almost certainly succeed first in the marketplace,
because (and this is vital) the regulatory environment
against anonymity is not compromised.
"Once, however, money has been digitized, one of the
services available for purchase can be the anonymous
transfer of funds. I expect that the first digitization of
money won't be fully fungible. For example, if you allow
me to take money out of your checking account by automatic
debit, there is risk that the money won't be there when I
ask for it. Therefore that kind of money won't be
completely fungible, because money authorized from one
person won't be completely identical with money from
another. It may be a risk issue, it may be a timeliness
issue, it may be a fee issue; I don't know, but it's
unlikely to be perfect.
"Now, as the characteristic size of a business decreases,
the relative costs of dealing with whatever imperfection
there is will be greater. To wit, the small player will
still have some problem getting paid, although certainly
less than now. Digital cash solves many of these problems.
The clearing is immediate and final (no transaction
reversals). The number of entities to deal with is greatly
reduced, hopefully to one. The need and risk and cost of
accounts receivables is eliminated. It's anonymous. There
will be services which will desire these advantages, enough
to support a digital cash infrastructure. [Eric Hughes,
Cypherpunks list, 1994-08-03]
12.11. Commerce on the Internet
12.11.1. This has been a brewing topic for the past couple of years.
In 1994 thing heated up on several fronts:
- DigiCash announcement
- NetMarket announcement
- various other systems, including Visa Electronic Purse
12.11.2. I have no idea which ones will succeed...
12.11.3. NetMarket
- Mosaic connections, using PGP
+ "The NetMarket Company is now offering PGP-encrypted Mosaic
sessions for securely transmitting credit card information
over the Internet. Peter Lewis wrote an article on
NetMarket on page D1 of today's New York Times (8/12/94).
For more information on NetMarket, connect to
http://www.netmarket.com/ or, telnet netmarket.com." [
Guy H. T. Haskin , 1994-08-12]
- Uses PGP. Hailed by the NYT as the first major use of
crypto for some form of digital money, but this is not
correct.
12.11.4. CommerceNet
- allows Internet users to buy and sell goods.
- "I read in yesterday's L.A. Times about something called
CommerceNet, where sellers and buyers of workstation level
equipment can meet and conduct busniess....Near the end of
the article, they talked about a proposed method for
exchanging "digital signatures" via Moasic (so that buyers
and sellers could _know_ that they were who they said they
were) and that they were going to "submit it to the
Internet Standards body"" [Cypher1@aol.com, 1994-06-23]
12.11.5. EDI, purchase orders, paperwork reduction, etc.
- Nick Szabo is a fan of this approach
12.11.6. approaches
- send VISA numbers in ordinary mail....obviously insecure
- send VISA numbers in encrypted mail
+ establish two-way clearing protocols
- better ensures that recipient will fulfill service...like
a receipt that customer signs (instead of the "sig taken
over the phone" approach)
- various forms of digital money
12.11.7. lightweight vs. heavyweight processes for Internet commerce
- Chris Hibbert
- and the recurring issue of centralized vs. decentralized
authentication and certification
12.12. Cypherpunks Experiments ("Magic Money")
12.12.1. What is Magic Money?
- "Magic Money is a digital cash system designed for use over
electronic mail. The system is online and untraceable.
Online means that each transaction involves an exchange
with a server, to prevent double-spending. Untraceable
means that it is impossible for anyone to trace
transactions, or to match a withdrawal with a deposit, or
to match two coins in any way."
"The system consists of two modules, the server and the
client. Magic Money uses the PGP ascii-armored message
format for all communication between the server and client.
All traffic is encrypted, and messages from the server to
the client are signed. Untraceability is provided by a
Chaum-style blind signature. Note that the blind signature
is patented, as is RSA. Using it for experimental purposes
only shouldn't get you in trouble.
"Digicash is represented by discrete coins, the
denominations of which are chosen by the server operator.
Coins are RSA-signed, with a different e/d pair for each
denomination. The server does not store any money. All
coins are stored by the client module. The server accepts
old coins and blind- signs new coins, and checks off the
old ones on a spent list."
[...rest of excellent summary elided...highly recommended
that you dig it up (archives, Web site?) and read it]
[Pr0duct Cypher, Magic Money Digicash System, 1992-02-04]
+ Magic Money
- ftp://csn.org/pub/mpj/crypto_XXXXXX (or something like
that)
- ftp:csn.org//mpj/I_will_not_export/crypto_???????/pgp_too
ls
12.12.2. Matt Thomlinson experimented with a derivative version called
"GhostMarks"
12.12.3. there was also a "Tacky Tokens" derivative
12.12.4. Typical Problems with Such Experiments
- Not worth anything...making the money meaningful is an
obstacle to be overcome
- If worth anything, not worth the considerable effort to use
it ("creating Magic Money clients" and other scary Unix
stuff!)
- robustness...sites go down, etc.
- same problems were seen on Extropians list with "HEx"
exchange and its currency, the "thorne." (I even paid real
money to Edgar Swank to buy some thorned...alas, the market
was too thinly traded and the thornes did me no good.)
12.13. Practical Issues and Concerns with Digital Cash
12.13.1. "Is physical identity proof needed for on-line clearing?"
- No, not if the cash outlook is taken. Cash is cash. Caveat
emptor.
- The "first to the locker" approach causes the bank not to
particularly care about this, just as a Swiss bank will
allow access to a numbered account by presentation of the
number, and perhaps a key. Identity proof *may* be needed,
depending on the "protocol" they and the customer
established, but it need not be. And the last thing the
bank is worried about is being able to "find and prosecute"
anyone, as there is no way they can be liable for a double
spending incident. The beauties of local clearing! (Which
is what gold coins do, and paper money if we really think
we can pass it on to others.)
12.13.2. "Is digital cash traceable?"
- There are several flavors of "digital cash," ranging from
versions of VISA cards to fully untraceable (Chaumian)
digital cash.
- This comes up a lot, with people in Net newsgroups even
warning others not to use digital cash because of the ease
of traceability. Not so.
- "Not the kind proposed by David Chaum and his colleagues in
the Netherlands. The whole thrust of their research over
the last decade has been the use of cryptographic
techniques to make electronic transactions secure from
fraud while at the same time protecting personal privacy.
They, and others, have developed a number of schemes for
UNTRACEABLE digital cash." [Kevin Van Horn,
talk.politics.crypto, 1994-07-03]
12.13.3. "Is there a danger that people will lose the numbers that
they need to redeem money? That someone could steal the
number and thus steal their money?"
- Sure. There's the danger that I'll lose my bearer bonds, or
forget my Swiss bank account number, or lose my treasure
map to where I buried my money (as Alan Turing supposedly
did in WW II).
- People can take steps to limit risk. More secure computers.
Dongles worn around their necks. Protocols that involve
biometric authentication to their local computer or key
storage PDA, etc. Limits on withdrawals per day, etc.
People can store key numbers with people they trust,
perhaps encrypted with other keys, can leave them with
their lawyers, etc. All sorts of arrangements can be made.
Personal identification is but one of these arrangements.
Often used, but not essential to the underlyng protocol.
Again, the Swiss banks (maybe now the Liechtenstein
anstalts are a better example) don't require physical ID
for all accounts. (More generally, if Charles wants to
create a bank in which deposits are made and then given out
to the first person who sings the right tune, why should we
care? This extreme example is useful in pointing out that
_contractual arrangements_ need not involve governmental or
societal norms about what constitutes proof of identity.)
12.14. Cyberspace and Digital Money
12.14.1. "You can't eat cyberspace, so what good is digital money?"
- This comes up a lot. People assume there is no practical
way to transfer assets, when in fact it is done all the
time. That is, money flows from the realm of the purely
"informational" realm to the physcial realm Consultants,
writers, traders, etc., all use their heads and thereby
earn real money.
- Same will apply to cyberspace.
12.14.2. "How can I remain anonymous when buying physical items using
anonymous digital cash?'
- Very difficult. Once you are seen, and your picture can be
taken( perhaps unknown to you), databases will have you.
Not much can be done about this.
- People have proposed schemes for anonymous shipment and
pickup, but the plain fact is that physical delivery of any
sort compromises anonymity, just as in the world today.
- The purpose of anonymous digital cash is partly to at least
make it more difficult, to not give Big Brother your
detailed itinerary from toll road movements, movie theater
payments, etc. To the extent that physical cameras can
still track cars, people, shipments, etc., anonymous
digital cash doesn't solve this surveillance problem.
12.15. Outlawing of Cash
12.15.1. "What are the motivations for outlawing cash?"
- (Note: This has not happened. Many of us see signs of it
happening. Others are skeptical.)
+ Reasons for the Elimination of Cash:
- War on Drugs....need I say more?
- surface the underground economy, by withdrawing paper
currency and forcing all monetary transaction into forms
that can be easily monitored, regulated, and taxed.
- tax avoidance, under the table economy (could also be
motive for tamper-resistant cash registers, with spot
checks to ensure compliance)
+ welfare, disability, pension, social security auto-
deposits
- fraud, double-dipping
- reduce theft of welfare checks, disability payments,
etc....a problem in some locales, and automatic
deposit/cash card approaches are being evaluated.
- general reduction in theft, pickpockets
- reduction of paperwork: all transfers electronic (could
be part of a "reinventing government" initiative)
+ illegal immigrants, welfare cheats, etc. Give everyone a
National Identity Card (they'll call it something
different. to make it more palatable, such as "Social
Services Portable Inventory Unit" or "Health Rights
Document").
- (Links to National Health Care Card, to Welfare Card,
to other I.D. schemes designed to reduce fraud, track
citizen-units, etc.)
+ rationing systems that depend on non-cash transactions
(as explained elsewhere, market distortions from
rationing systems generally require identification,
correlation to person or group, etc.)
- this rationing can included subsidized prices, denial
of access (e.g., certain foods denied to certain
people)
12.15.2. Lest this be considered paranoid ranting, let me point out
that many actions have already been taken that limit the form
of money (banking laws, money laundering, currency
restrictions...even the outlawing of competing currencies
itself)
12.15.3. Dangers of outlawing cash
- Would freeze out all transactions, giving Big Brother
unprecedented power (unless the non-cash forms were
anonymous, a la Chaum and the systems we support)
- Would allow complete traceability....like the cellular
phones that got Simpson
- 666, Heinlein, Shockwave Rider, etc.
12.15.4. Given that there is no requirement for identity to be
associated with money, we should fight any system which
proposed to link the two.
12.15.5. The value of paying cash
- makes a transaction purely local, resolved on the spot
- the alternative, a complicated accounting system involving
other parties, etc., is much less attractive
- too many transactions these days are no longer handled in
cash, which increases costs and gets other parties involved
where they shouldn't be involved.
12.15.6. "Will people accept the banning of cash?"
- There was a time when I would've said Americans, at least,
would've rejected such a thing. Too many memories of
"Papieren, bitte. Macht schnell!" But I now think most
Americans (and Europeans) are so used to producing
documents for every transaction, and so used to using VISA
cards and ATM cards at gas stations, supermarkets, and even
at flea markets, that they'll willingly--even eagerly--
adopt such a system.
12.16. Novel Opportunities
12.16.1. Encrypted open books, or anonymous auditing
- Eric Hughes has worked on a scheme using a kind of blinding
to do "encrypted open books," whereby observers can verify
that a bank is balancing its books without more detailed
looks at individual accounts. (I have my doubts about
spoofs, attacks, etc., but such are always to be considered
in any new protocol.)
- "Kent Hastings wondered how an offshore bank could provide
assurances to depositors. I wondered the same thing a few
months ago, and started working on what Perry calls the
anonymous auditing problem. I have what I consider to be
the core of a solution.
...The following is long.... [TCM Note: Too long to include
here. I am including just enough to convince readers that
some new sorts of banking ideas may come out of
cryptography.]
"If we use the contents of the encrypted books at the
organizational boundary points to create suitable legal
opbligations, we can mostly ignore what goes on inside of
the mess of random numbers. That is, even if double books
were being kept, the legal obligations created should
suffice to ensure that everything can be unwound if needed.
This doesn't prevent networks of corrupt businesses from
going down all at once, but it does allow networks of
honest businesses to operate with more assurance of
honesty." [Eric Hughes, PROTOCOL: Encrypted Open Books,
1993-08-16]
12.16.2. "How can software components be sold, and how does crypto
figure in?"
+ Reusable Software, Brad Cox, Sprague, etc.
- good article in "Wired" (repeated in "Out of Control")
- First, certainly software is sold. The issues is why the
"software components" market has not yet developed, and why
such specific instances of software as music, art, text,
etc., have not been sold in smaller chunks.
+ Internet commerce is a huge area of interest, and future
development.
- currently developing very slowly
- lots of conflicting information...several mailing
lists...lots of hype
+ Digital cash is often cited as a needed enabling tool, but
I think the answer is more complicated than that.
- issues of convenience
- issues of there being no recurring market (as there is
in, say, the chip business...software doesn't get bought
over and over again, in increasing unit volumes)
12.17. Loose Ends
12.17.1. Reasons to have no government involvement in commerce
- Even a small involvement, through special regulations,
granted frachises, etc., produces vested interests. For
example, those in a community who had to wait to get
building permits want _others_ to wait just as long, or
longer. Or, businesses that had to meet certain standard,
even if unreasonable, will demand that new businesses do so
also. The effect is an ever-widening tar pit of rules,
restrictions, and delays. Distortions of the market result.
+ Look at how hard it is for the former U.S.S.R. to
disentangle itself from 75 years of central planning. They
are now an almost totally Mafia-controlled state (by this I
mean that "privatization" of formerly non-private
enterprises benefitted those who had amassed money and
influence, and that these were mainly the Russian Mafia and
former or current politicians...the repercussions of this
"corrupt giveaway" will be felt for decades to come).
- An encouraging sign: The thriving black market in Russia-
-which all Cypherpunks of course cheer--will gradually
displace the old business systems with new ones, as in
all economies. Eventually the corruptly-bought businesses
will sink or swim based on merit, and newly-created
enterprises will compete with them.
12.17.2. "Purist" Approach to Keys, Cash, Responsibility
+ There are two main approaches to the issue:
- Key owner is responsible for uses of his key
- or, Others are responsible
+ There may be mixed situations, such as when a key is
stolen...but this needs also to be planned-for by the key
owner, by use of protocols that limit exposure. For
example, few people will use a single key that accesses
immediately their net worth...most people will partition
their holding and their keyed access in such a way as to
naturally limit exposure if any particular key is lost or
compromised. Or forgotten.
- could involve their bank holding keys, or escrow agents
- or n-out-of-m voting systems
- Contracts are the essence...what contracts do people
voluntarily enter into?
- And locality--who better to keep keys secure than the
owner? Anything that transfers blame to "the banks" or to
"society" breaks the feedback loop of responsibility,
provides an "out" for the lazy, and encourages fraud
(people who disavow contracts by claiming their key was
stolen).
13. Activism and Projects
13.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
13.2. SUMMARY: Activism and Projects
13.2.1. Main Points
13.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
13.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
13.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
13.3. Activism is a Tough Job
13.3.1. "herding cats"..trying to change the world through
exhortation seems a particulary ineffective notion
13.3.2. There's always been a lot of wasted time and rhetoric on the
Cypherpunks list as various people tried to get others to
follow their lead, to adopt their vision. (Nothing wrong with
this, if done properly. If someone leads by example, or has a
particularly compelling vision or plan, this may naturally
happen. Too often, though, the situation was that someone's
vague plans for a product were declared by them to be the
standards that others should follow. Various schemes for
digital money, in many forms and modes, has always been the
prime example of this.)
13.3.3. This is related also to what Kevin Kelley calls "the fax
effect." When few people own fax machines, they're not of
much use. Trying to get others to use the same tools one has
is like trying to convince people to buy fax machines so that
you can communicate by fax with them...it may happen, but
probably for other reasons. (Happily, the interoperability of
PGP provided a common communications medium that had been
lacking with previous platform-specific cipher programs.)
13.3.4. Utopian schemes are also a tough sell. Schemes about using
digital money to make inflation impossible, schemes to
collect taxes with anonymous systems, etc.
13.3.5. Harry Browne's "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World" is
well worth reading; he advises against getting upset and
frustrated that the world is not moving in the direction one
would like.
13.4. Cypherpunks Projects
13.4.1. "What are Cypherpunks projects?"
- Always a key part--perhaps _the_ key part--of Cypherpunks
activity. "Cypherpunks write code." From work on PGP to
remailers to crypto toolkits to FOIA requests, and a bunch
of other things, Cypherpunks hack the system in various
ways.
- Matt Blaze's LEAF blower, Phil Karn's "swIPe" system, Peter
Wayner's articles....all are examples. (Many Cypherpunks
projects are also done, or primarily done, for other
reasons, so we cannot in all cases claim credit for this
work.)
13.4.2. Extensions to PGP
13.4.3. Spread of PGP and crypto in general.
- education
- diskettes containing essays, programs
- ftp sites
- raves, conventions, gatherings
13.4.4. Remailers
+ ideal Chaumian mix has certain properties
- latency to foil traffic analysis
- encryption
- no records kept (hardware tamper-resistance, etc.)
- Cyperpunks remailers
- julf remailers
+ abuses
- flooding, because mail transmission costs are not borne
by sender
+ anonymity produces potential for abuses
- death threats, extortion
- Progress continues, with new features added. See the
discussion in the remailers section.
13.4.5. Steganography
- hiding the existence of a message, for at least some amount
of time
- security through obscurity
- invisible ink, microdots
+ Uses
- in case crypto is outawed, may be useful to avoid
authorities
- if enough people do it, increases the difficulty of
enforcing anti-crypto laws (all
+ Stego
- JSTEG:
soda.berkeley.edu:/pub/cypherpunks/applications/jsteg
- Stego: sumex-aim.stanford.edu
13.4.6. Anonymous Transaction Systems
13.4.7. Voice Encryption, Voice PGP
- Clipper, getting genie out of bottle
- CELP, compression, DSPs
- SoundBlaster approach...may not have enough processing
power
+ hardware vs. pure software
- newer Macs, including av Macs and System 7 Pro, have
interesting capabilities
+ Zimmermann's plans have been widely publicized, that he is
looking for donations, that he is seeking programming help,
etc.
- which does not bode well for seeing such a product from
him
- frankly, I expect it will come from someone else
- Eric Blossom is pursuing own hardware board, based on 2105
+ "Is anyone building encrypted telephones?"
-
+ Yes, several such projects are underway. Eric Blossom
even showed a
- PCB of one at a Cypherpunks meeting, using an
inexpensive DSP chip.
-
+ Software-only versions, with some compromises in speech
quality
- probably, are also underway. Phil Zimmermann
described his progress at
+ the last Cypherpunks meeting.
-
- ("Software-only" can mean using off-the-shelf, widely-
available DSP
+ boards like SoundBlasters.)
-
- And I know of at least two more such projects.
Whether any will
+ materialize is anyone's guess.
-
- And various hacks have already been done. NeXT users
have had
- voicemail for years, and certain Macs now offer
something similar.
+ Adding encryption is not a huge obstacle.
-
- A year ago, several Cypherpunks meeting sites around
the U.S. were
- linked over the Internet using DES encryption. The
sound quality was
- poor, for various reasons, and we turned off the DES
in a matter of
- minutes. Still, an encrypted audio conference call.
13.4.8. DC-Nets
- What it is, how it works
- Chaum's complete 1988 "Journal of Cryptology" article is
available at the Cypherpunks archive site,
ftp.soda.csua.edu, in /pub/cypherpunks
+ Dining Cryptographers Protocols, aka "DC Nets"
+ "What is the Dining Cryptographers Problem, and why is it
so important?"
+ This is dealt with in the main section, but here's
David Chaum's Abstract, from his 1988 paper"
- Abstract: "Keeping confidential who sends which
messages, in a world where any physical transmission
can be traced to its origin, seems impossible. The
solution presented here is unconditionally or
cryptographically secure, depending on whether it is
based on one-time-use keys or on public keys.
respectively. It can be adapted to address
efficiently a wide variety of practical
considerations." ["The Dining Cryptographers Problem:
Unconditional Sender and Recipient Untraceability,"
David Chaum, Journal of Cryptology, I, 1, 1988.]
-
- DC-nets have yet to be implemented, so far as I know,
but they represent a "purer" version of the physical
remailers we are all so familiar with now. Someday
they'll have have a major impact. (I'm a bigger fan of
this work than many seem to be, as there is little
discussion in sci.crypt and the like.)
+ "The Dining Cryptographers Problem: Unconditional Sender
and Recipient Untraceability," David Chaum, Journal of
Cryptology, I, 1, 1988.
- available courtesy of the Information Liberation Front
at the soda.csua.berkeley.edu site
- Abstract: "Keeping confidential who sends which
messages, in a world where any physical transmission
can be traced to its origin, seems impossible. The
solution presented here is unconditionally or
cryptographically secure, depending on whether it is
based on one-time-use keys or on public keys.
respectively. It can be adapted to address efficiently
a wide variety of practical considerations." ["The
Dining Cryptographers Problem: Unconditional Sender and
Recipient Untraceability," David Chaum, Journal of
Cryptology, I, 1, 1988.]
- Note that the initials "D.C." have several related
meanings: Dining Cryptographers, Digital Cash/DigiCash,
and David Chaum. Coincidence?
+ Informal Explanation
- Note: I've posted this explanation, and variants,
several times since I first wrote it in mid-1992. In
fact, I first posted it on the "Extropians" mailing
list, as "Cypherpunks" did not then exist.
- Three Cypherpunks are having dinner, perhaps in Palo
Alto. Their waiter tells them that their bill has
already been paid, either by the NSA or by one of them.
The waiter won't say more. The Cypherpunks wish to know
whether one of them paid, or the NSA paid. But they
don't want to be impolite and force the Cypherpunk
payer to 'fess up, so they carry out this protocol (or
procedure):
Each Cypherpunk flips a fair coin behind a menu placed
upright between himself and the Cypherpunk on his
right. The coin is visible to himself AND to the
Cypherpunk on his left. Each Cypherpunk can see his own
coin and the coin to his right. (STOP RIGHT HERE!
Please take the time to make a sketch of the situation
I've described. If you lost it here, all that follows
will be a blur. It's too bad the state of the Net today
cannot support figures and diagrams easily.)
Each Cypherpunk then states out loud whether the two
coins he can see are the SAME or are DIFFERENT, e.g.,
"Heads-Tails" means DIFFERENT, and so forth. For now,
assume the Cypherpunks are truthful. A little bit of
thinking shows that the total number of "DIFFERENCES"
must be either 0 (the coins all came up the same), or
2. Odd parity is impossible.
Now the Cypherpunks agree that if one of them paid, he
or she will SAY THE OPPOSITE of what they actually see.
Remember, they don't announce what their coin turned up
as, only whether it was the same or different as their
neighbor.
Suppose none of them paid, i.e., the NSA paid. Then
they all report the truth and the parity is even
(either 0 or 2 differences). They then know the NSA
paid.
Suppose one of them paid the bill. He reports the
opposite of what he actually sees, and the parity is
suddenly odd. That is, there is 1 difference reported.
The Cypherpunks now know that one of them paid. But can
they determine which one?
Suppose you are one of the Cypherpunks and you know you
didn't pay. One of the other two did. You either
reported SAME or DIFFERENT, based on what your neighbor
to the right (whose coin you can see) had. But you
can't tell which of the other two is lying! (You can
see you right-hand neighbor's coin, but you can't see
the coin he sees to his right!)
This all generalizes to any number of people. If none
of them paid, the parity is even. If one of them paid,
the parity is odd. But which one of them paid cannot be
deduced. And it should be clear that each round can
transmit a bit, e.g., "I paid" is a "1". The message
"Attack at dawn" could thus be "sent" untraceably with
multiple rounds of the protocol.
- The "Crypto Ouija Board": I explain this to people as a
kind of ouija board. A message, like "I paid" or a more
interesting "Transfer funds from.....," just "emerges"
out of the group, with no means of knowing where it
came from. Truly astounding.
+ Problems and Pitfalls
- In Chaum's paper, the explanation above is given
quickly, in a few pages. The _rest_ of the paper is
then devoted to dealing with the many "gotchas" and
attacks that come up and that must be dealt with before
the DC protocol is even remotely possible. I think all
those interested in protocol design should read this
paper, and the follow-on papers by Bos, Pfitzmann,
etc., as object lessons for dealing with complex crypto
protocols.
+ The Problems:
- 1. Collusion. Obviously the Cypherpunks can collude
to deduce the payer. This is best dealt with by
creating multiple subcircuits (groups doing the
protocol amongst themselves). Lots more stuff here.
Chaum devotes most of the paper to these kind of
issues and their solutions.
2. With each round of this protocol, a single bit is
transmitted. Sending a long message means many coin
flips. Instead of coins and menus, the neighbors
would exchange lists of random numbers (with the
right partners, as per the protocol above, of course.
Details are easy to figure out.)
3. Since the lists are essentially one-time pads, the
protocol is unconditionally secure, i.e., no
assumptions are made about the difficulty of
factoring large numbers or any other crypto
assumptions.
4. Participants in such a "DC-Net" (and here we are
coming to the heart of the "crypto anarchy" idea)
could exchange CD-ROMs or DATs, giving them enough
"coin flips" for zillions of messages, all
untraceable! The logistics are not simple, but one
can imagine personal devices, like smart card or
Apple "Newtons," that can handle these protocols
(early applications may be for untraceable
brainstorming comments, secure voting in corportate
settings, etc.)
5. The lists of random numbers (coin flips) can be
generated with standard cryptographic methods,
requiring only a key to be exchanged between the
appropriate participants. This eliminates the need
for the one-time pad, but means the method is now
only cryptographically secure, which is often
sufficient. (Don't think "only cryptographically
secure" means insecure....the messages may remain
encrypted for the next billion years)
6. Collisions occur when multiple messages are sent
at the same time. Various schemes can be devised to
handle this, like backing off when you detect another
sender (when even parity is seen instead of odd
parity). In large systems this is likely to be a
problem. Deliberate disruption, or spamming, is a
major problem--a disruptor can shut down the DC-net
by sending bits out. As with remailes, anonymity
means freedom from detection. (Anonymous payments to
send a message may help, but the details are murky to
me.)
+ Uses
- * Untraceable mail. Useful for avoiding censorship, for
avoiding lawsuits, and for all kinds of crypto anarchy
things.
- * Fully anonymous bulletin boards, with no traceability
of postings or responses. Illegal materials can be
offered for sale (my 1987 canonical example, which
freaked out a few people: "Stealth bomber blueprints
for sale. Post highest offer and include public key.").
Think for a few minutes about this and you'll see the
profound implications.
- * Decentralized nexus of activity. Since messages
"emerge" (a la the ouija board metaphor), there is no
central posting area. Nothing for the government to
shut down, complete deniability by the participants.
- * Only you know who your a partners are....in any given
circuit. And you can be in as many circuits as you
wish. (Payments can be made to others, to create a
profit motive. I won't deal with this issue, or with
the issue of how reputations are handled, here.)
- It should be clear that DC-nets offer some amazing
opportunities. They have not been implemented at all, and
have received almost no attention compared to ordinary
Cypherpunks remailers. Why is this? The programming
complexity (and the underlying cryptographic primitives
that are needed) seems to be the key. Several groups have
announced plans to imlement some form of DC-net, but
nothing has appeared.
- software vs. hardware,
- Yanek Martinson, Strick, Austin group, Rishab
- IMO, this is an ideal project for testing the efficacy of
software toolkits. The primitives needed, including bit
commitment, synchronization, and collusion handling, are
severe tests of crypto systems. On the downside, I doubt
that even the Pfaltzmans or Bos has pulled off a running
simulation...
13.4.9. D-H sockets, UNIX, swIPe
+ swIPe
- Matt Blaze, John I. (did coding), Phil Karn, Perry
Metzger, etc. are the main folks involved
- evolved from "mobile IP," with radio links, routing
- virtual networks
- putting encryption in at the IP level, transparently
- bypassing national borders
- Karn
- at soda site
+ swIPe system, for routing packets
- end to end, gateways, links, Mach, SunOS
13.4.10. Digital Money, Banks, Credit Unions
- Magic Money
- Digital Bank
- "Open Encrypted Books"
- not easy to do...laws, regulations, expertise in banking
- technical flaws, issues in digital money
+ several approaches
- clearing
- tokens, stamps, coupons
- anonymity-protected transactions
13.4.11. Data Havens
+ financial info, credit reports
- bypassing local jurisdictions, time limits, arcane rules
- reputations
- insider trading
- medical
- technical, scientific, patents
- crypto information (recursively enough)
- need not be any known location....distributed in
cyberspace
- One of the most commercially interesting applications.
13.4.12. Related Technologies
- Agorics
- Evolutionary Systems
- Virtual Reality and Cyberspace
- Agents
+ Computer Security
+ Kerberos, Gnu, passwords
- recent controversy
- demon installed to watch packets
- Cygnus will release it for free
- GuardWire
+ Van Eck, HERF, EMP
- Once Cypherpunk project proposed early on was the
duplication of certain NSA capabilities to monitor
electronic communications. This involves "van Eck"
radiation (RF) emitted by the CRTs and other electronics
of computers.
+ Probably for several reasons, this has not been pursued,
at least not publically.
- legality
- costs
- difficulty in finding targets of opportunity
- not a very CPish project!
13.4.13. Matt Blaze, AT&T, various projects
+ a different model of trust...multiple universes
- not heierarchical interfaces, but mistrust of interfaces
- heterogeneous
- where to put encryption, where to mistrust, etc.
+ wants crypto at lowest level that is possible
- almost everything should be mistrusted
- every mistrusted interface shoud be cryptographically
protected...authentication, encryption
+ "black pages"---support for cryptographic communication
- "pages of color"
- a collection of network services that identiy and deliver
security information as needed....keys, who he trusts,
protocols, etc.
+ front end: high-level API for security requirements
- like DNS? caching models?
- trusted local agent....
+ "people not even born yet" (backup tapes of Internet
communications)
- tapes stored in mountains, access by much more powerful
computers
+ "Crytptographic File System" (CFS)
- file encryption
- no single DES mode appears to be adequate...a mix of
modes
+ swIPe system, for routing packets
- end to end, gateways, links, Mach, SunOS
13.4.14. Software Toolkits
+ Henry Strickland's TCL-based toolkit for crypto
- other Cypherpunks, including Hal Finney and Marianne
Mueller, have expressed good opinions of TCL and TCL-TK
(toolkit)
- Pr0duct Cypher's toolkit
- C++ Class Libraries
- VMX, Visual Basic, Visual C++
- Smalltalk
13.5. Responses to Our Projects (Attacks, Challenges)
13.5.1. "What are the likely attitudes toward mainstream Cypherpunks
projects, such as remailers, encryption, etc.?"
- Reaction has already been largely favorable. Journalists
such as Steven Levy, Kevin Kelly, John Markoff, and Julian
Dibbell have written favorably. Reaction of people I have
talked to has also been mostly favorable.
13.5.2. "What are the likely attitudes toward the more outre
projects, such as digital money, crypto anarchy, data havens,
and the like?"
- Consternation is often met. People are frightened.
- The journalists who have written about these things (those
mentioned above) have gotten beyond the initial reaction
and seem genuinely intrigued by the changes that are
coming.
13.5.3. "What kinds of _attacks_ can we expect?"
+ Depends on the projects, but some general sorts of attacks
are likely. Some have already occurred. Examples:
* flooding of remailers, denial of service attacks--to
swamp systems and force remailers to reconsider
operations
- this is fixed (mostly) with "digital postage" (if
postage covers costs, and generates a profit, then the
more the better)
* deliberately illegal or malicicious messages, such as
death threats
- designed to put legal and sysop pressures on the
remailer operator
- several remailers have been attacked this way, or at
least have had these messages
- source-blocking sometimes works, though not of course
if another remailer is first used (many issues here)
* prosecution for content of posts
+ copyright violations
- e.g., forwarding ClariNet articles through Hal
Finney's remailer got Brad Templeton to write warning
letters to Hal
- pornography
- ITAR violations, Trading with the Enemy Act
- espionage, sedition, treason
- corporate secrets,
- These attacks will test the commitment and courage of
remailer or anonymizing service operators
13.6. Deploying Crypto
13.6.1. "How can Cypherpunks publicize crypto and PGP?"
- articles, editorials, radio shows, talking with friends
- The Net itself is probably the best place to publicize the
problems with Clipper and key escrow. The Net played a
major role--perhaps the dominant role--in generating scorn
for Clipper. In many way the themes debated here on the Net
have tremendous influence on media reaction, on editorials,
on organizational reactions, and of course on the opinion
of technical folks. News spreads quickly, zillions of
theories are aired and debated, and consensus tends to
emerge quickly.
- raves, Draper
- Libertarian Party, anarchists...
+ conferences and trade shows
- Arsen Ray Arachelian passed out diskettes at PC Expo
13.6.2. "What are the Stumbling Blocks to Greater Use of Encryption
(Cultural, Legal, Ethical)?"
+ "It's too hard to use"
- multiple protocols (just consider how hard it is to
actually send encrypted messages between people today)
- the need to remember a password or passphrase
+ "It's too much trouble"
- the argument being that people will not bother to use
passwords
- partly because they don't think anything will happen to
them
+ "What have you got to hide?"
- e.g.,, imagine some comments I'd have gotten at Intel had
I encrypted everything
- and governments tend to view encryption as ipso facto
proof that illegalities are being committed: drugs, money
laundering, tax evasion
- recall the "forfeiture" controversy
- BTW, anonymous systems are essentially the ultimate merit
system (in the obvious sense) and so fly in the face of the
"hiring by the numbers" de facto quota systems now
creeeping in to so many areas of life....there may be rules
requiring all business dealings to keep track of the sex,
race, and "ability group" (I'm kidding, I hope) of their
employees and their consultants
+ Courts Are Falling Behind, Are Overcrowded, and Can't Deal
Adequately with New Issues-Such as Encryption and Cryonics
- which raises the issue of the "Science Court" again
- and migration to private adjudication
- scenario: any trials that are being decided in 1998-9
will have to have been started in 1996 and based on
technology and decisions of around 1994
+ Government is taking various steps to limit the use of
encryption and secure communication
- some attempts have failed (S.266), some have been
shelved, and almost none have yet been tested in the
courts
- see the other sections...
13.6.3. Practical Issues
- Education
- Proliferation
- Bypassing Laws
13.6.4. "How should projects and progress best be achieved?"
- This is a tough one, one we've been grappling with for a
couple of years now. Lots of approaches.
- Writing code
- Organizational
- Lobbying
- I have to say that there's one syndrome we can probably do
w,the Frustrated Cyperpunks Syndrome. Manifested by someone
flaming the list for not jumping in to join them on their
(usually) half-baked scheme to build a digital bank, or
write a book, or whatever. "You guys just don't care!" is
the usual cry. Often these flamers end up leaving the list.
- Geography may play a role, as folks in otherwise-isolated
areas seem to get more attached to their ideas and then get
angry when the list as a whole does not adopt them (this is
my impression, at least).
13.6.5. Crypto faces the complexity barrier that all technologies
face
- Life has gotten more complicated in some ways, simpler in
other ways (we don't have to think about cooking, about
shoeing the horses, about the weather, etc.). Crypto is
currently fairly complicated, especially if multiple
paradigms are used (encryption, signing, money, etc.).
- As a personal note, I'm practically drowning in a.c.
adaptors and power cords for computers, laser printers,
VCRs, camcorders, portable stereos, laptop computers,
guitars, etc. Everything with a rechargeable battery has to
be charged, but not overcharged, and not allowed to run-
down...I forgot to plug in my old Powerbook 100 for a
couple of months, and the lead-acid batteries went out on
me. Personally, I'm drowning in this crap.
- I mention this only because I sense a backlash
coming...people will say "screw it" to new technology that
actually complicates their lives more than it simplifies
their lives. "Crypto tweaks" who like to fool around with
"creating a client" in order to play with digital cash will
continue to do so, but 99% of the sought-after users won't.
(A nation that can't--or won't--set its VCR clock will
hardly embrace the complexities of digital cash. Unless
things change, and use becomes as easy as using an ATM.)
13.6.6. "How can we get more people to worry about security in
general and encryption in particular?"
- Fact is, most people never think about real security. Safe
manufacturers have said that improvements in safes were
driven by insurance rates. A direct incentive to spend more
money to improve security (cost of better safe < cost of
higher insurance rate).
Right now there is almost no economic incentive for people
to worry about PIN security, about protecting their files,
etc. (Banks eat the costs and pass them on...any bank which
tried to save a few bucks in losses by requiring 10-digit
PINs--which people would *write down* anyway!--would lose
customers. Holograms and pictures on bank cards are
happening because the costs have dropped enough.)
Personally, my main interests is in ensuring the Feds don't
tell me I can't have as much security as I want to buy. I
don't share the concern quoted above that we have to find
ways to give other people security.
- Others disagree with my nonchalance, pointing out that
getting lots of other people to use crypto makes it easier
for those who already protect themselves. I agree, I just
don't focus on missionary work.
- For those so inclined, point out to people how vulnerable
their files are, how the NSA can monitor the Net, and so
on. All the usual scare stories.
13.7. Political Action and Opposition
13.7.1. Strong political action is emerging on the Net
- right-wing conspiracy theorists, like Linda Thompson
+ Net has rapid response to news events (Waco, Tienenmen,
Russia)
- with stories often used by media (lots of reporters on
Net, easy to cull for references, Net has recently become
tres trendy)
- Aryan Nation in Cyberspace
- (These developments bother many people I mention them to.
Nothing can be done about who uses strong crypto. And most
fasicst/racist situations are made worse by state
sponsorship--apartheid laws, Hitler's Germany, Pol Pot's
killing fields, all were examples of the state enforcing
racist or genocidal laws. The unbreakable crypto that the
Aryan Nation gets is more than offset by the gains
elsewhere, and the undermining of central authority.)
- shows the need for strong crypto...else governments will
infiltrate and monitor these political groups
13.7.2. Cypherpunks and Lobbying Efforts
+ "Why don't Cypherpunks have a lobbying effort?"
+ we're not "centered" near Washington, D.C., which seems
to be an essential thing (as with EFF, ACLU, EPIC, CPSR,
etc.)
- D.C. Cypherpunks once volunteered (April, 1993) to make
this their special focus, but not much has been heard
since. (To be fair to them, political lobbying is
pretty far-removed from most Cypherpunks interests.)
- no budget, no staff, no office
+ "herding cats" + no financial stakes = why we don't do
more
+ it's very hard to coordinate dozens of free-thinking,
opinionated, smart people, especially when there's no
whip hand, no financial incentive, no way to force them
into line
- I'm obviously not advocating such force, just noting a
truism of systems
+ "Should Cypherpunks advocate breaking laws to achieve
goals?"
- "My game is to get cryptography available to all, without
violating the law. This mean fighting Clipper, fighting
idiotic export restraints, getting the government to
change it's stance on cryptography, through arguements
and letter pointing out the problems ... This means
writing or promoting strong cryptography....By violating
the law, you give them the chance to brand you
"criminal," and ignore/encourage others to ignore what
you have to say." [Bob Snyder, 4-28-94]
13.7.3. "How can nonlibertarians (liberals, for example) be convinced
of the need for strong crypto?"
- "For liberals, I would examine some pet cause and examine
the consequences of that cause becoming "illegal." For
instance, if your friends are "pro choice," you might ask
them what they would do if the right to lifers outlawed
abortion. Would they think it was wrong for a rape victim
to get an abortion just because it was illegal? How would
they feel about an abortion "underground railroad"
organized via a network of "stations" coordinated via the
Internet using "illegal encryption"? Or would they trust
Clipper in such a situation?
"Everyone in America is passionate about something. Such
passion usually dispenses with mere legalism, when it comes
to what the believer feels is a question of fundamental
right and wrong. Hit them with an argument that addresses
their passion. Craft a pro-crypto argument that helps
preserve the object of that passion." [Sandy Sandfort, 1994-
06-30]
13.7.4. Tension Between Governments and Citizens
- governments want more monitoring...big antennas to snoop on
telecommunications, "
- people who protect themselves are sometimes viewed with
suspicion
+ Americans have generally been of two minds about privacy:
- None of your damn business, a man's home is his
castle..rugged individualism, self-sufficiency, Calvinism
- What have you got to hide? Snooping on neighbors
+ These conflicting views are held simultaneously, almost
like a tensor that is not resolvable to some resultant
vector
- this dichotomy cuts through legal decisions as well
13.7.5. "How does the Cypherpunks group differ from lobbying groups
like the EFF, CPSR, and EPIC?"
- We're more disorganized (anarchic), with no central office,
no staff, no formal charter, etc.
- And the political agenda of the aforementioned groups is
often at odds with personal liberty. (support by them for
public access programs, subsidies, restrictions on
businesses, etc.)
- We're also a more radical group in nearly every way, with
various flavors of political extremism strongly
represented. Mostly anarcho-capitalists and strong
libertarians, and many "no compromises" privacy advocates.
(As usual, my apologies to any Maoists or the like who
don't feel comfortable being lumped in with the
libertarians....if you're out there, you're not speaking
up.) In any case, the house of Cypherpunks has many rooms.
- We were called "Crypto Rebels" in Steven Levy's "Wired"
article (issue 1.2, early 1993). We can represent a
_radical alternative_ to the Beltway lawyers that dominate
EFF, EPIC, etc. No need to compromise on things like
Clipper, Software Key Escrow, Digital Telephony, and the
NII. But, of course, no input to the legislative process.
- But there's often an advantage to having a much more
radical, purist body out in the wings, making the
"rejectionist" case and holding the inner circle folks to a
tougher standard of behavior.
- And of course there's the omnipresent difference that we
tend to favor direct action through technology over
politicking.
13.7.6. Why is government control of crypto so dangerous?
+ dangers of government monopoly on crypto and sigs
- can "revoke your existence"
- no place to escape to (historically an important social
relief valve)
13.7.7. NSA's view of crypto advocates
- "I said to somebody once, this is the revenge of people
who couldn't go to Woodstock because they had too much trig
homework. It's a kind of romanticism about privacy and the
kind of, you know, "you won't get my crypto key until you
pry it from my dead cold fingers" kind of stuff. I have to
say, you know, I kind of find it endearing." [Stuart Baker,
counsel, NSA, CFP '94]
13.7.8. EFF
- eff@eff.org
+ How to Join
- $40, get form from many places, EFFector Online,
- membership@eff.org
+ EFFector Online
- ftp.eff.org, pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector
+ Open Platform
- ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/EFF/Policy/Open_Platform
- National Information Infrastructure
13.7.9. "How can the use of cryptography be hidden?"
+ Steganography
- microdots, invisible ink
- where even the existence of a coded message gets one shot
+ Methods for Hiding the Mere Existence of Encrypted Data
+ in contrast to the oft-cited point (made by crypto
purists) that one must assume the opponent has full
access to the cryptotext, some fragments of decrypted
plaintext, and to the algorithm itself, i.e., assume the
worst
- a condition I think is practically absurd and
unrealistic
- assumes infinite intercept power (same assumption of
infinite computer power would make all systems besides
one-time pads breakable)
- in reality, hiding the existence and form of an
encrypted message is important
+ this will be all the more so as legal challenges to
crypto are mounted...the proposed ban on encrypted
telecom (with $10K per day fine), various governmental
regulations, etc.
- RICO and other broad brush ploys may make people very
careful about revealing that they are even using
encryption (regardless of how secure the keys are)
+ steganography, the science of hiding the existence of
encrypted information
- secret inks
- microdots
- thwarting traffic analysis
- LSB method
+ Packing data into audio tapes (LSB of DAT)
+ LSB of DAT: a 2GB audio DAT will allow more than 100
megabytes in the LSBs
- less if algorithms are used to shape the spectrum to
make it look even more like noise
- but can also use the higher bits, too (since a real-
world recording will have noise reaching up to
perhaps the 3rd or 4th bit)
+ will manufacturers investigate "dithering" circuits?
(a la fat zero?)
- but the race will still be on
+ Digital video will offer even more storage space (larger
tapes)
- DVI, etc.
- HDTV by late 1990s
+ Messages can be put into GIFF, TIFF image files (or even
noisy faxes)
- using the LSB method, with a 1024 x 1024 grey scale
image holding 64KB in the LSB plane alone
- with error correction, noise shaping, etc., still at
least 50KB
- scenario: already being used to transmit message
through international fax and image transmissions
+ The Old "Two Plaintexts" Ploy
- one decoding produces "Having a nice time. Wish you
were here."
- other decoding, of the same raw bits, produces "The
last submarine left this morning."
- any legal order to produce the key generates the first
message
+ authorities can never prove-save for torture or an
informant-that another message exists
- unless there are somehow signs that the encrypted
message is somehow "inefficiently encrypted,
suggesting the use of a dual plaintext pair method"
(or somesuch spookspeak)
- again, certain purist argue that such issues (which are
related to the old "How do you know when to stop?"
question) are misleading, that one must assume the
opponent has nearly complete access to everything
except the actual key, that any scheme to combine
multiple systems is no better than what is gotten as a
result of the combination itself
- and just the overall bandwidth of data...
13.7.10. next Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference will be March
1995, San Francisco
13.7.11. Places to send messages to
- cantwell@eff.org, Subject: I support HR 3627
- leahy@eff.org, Subject: I support hearings on Clipper
13.7.12. Thesis: Crypto can become unstoppable if critical mass is
reached
- analogy: the Net...too scattered, too many countries, too
many degrees of freedom
- so scattered that attempts to outlaw strong crypto will be
futile...no bottlenecks, no "mountain passes" (in a race to
the pass, beyond which the expansion cannot be halted
except by extremely repressive means)
13.7.13. Keeping the crypto genie from being put in the bottle
- (though some claim the genie was never _in_ the bottle,
historically)
- ensuring that enough people are using it, and that the Net
is using it
- a _threshold_, a point of no return
13.7.14. Activism practicalities
+ "Why don't we buy advertising time like Perot did?"
+ This and similar points come up in nearly all political
discussions (I'm seeing in also in talk.politics.guns).
The main reasons it doesn't happen are:
- ads cost a lot of money
- casual folks rarely have this kind of money to spend
- "herding cats" comes to mind, i.e., it's nearly
impossible to coordinate the interests of people to
gather money, set up ad campaigns, etc.
- In my view, a waste of efforts. The changes I want won't
come through a series of ads that are just fingers in the
dike. (More cynically, Americans are getting the government
they've been squealing for. My interest is in bypassing
their avarice and repression, not in changing their minds.)
- Others feel differently, from posts made to the list.
Practically speaking, though, organized political activity
is difficult to achieve with the anarchic nonstructure of
the Cypherpunks group. Good luck!
13.8. The Battle Lines are Being Drawn
13.8.1. Clipper met with disdain and scorn, so now new strategies are
being tried...
13.8.2. Strategies are shifting, Plan B is being hauled out
- fear, uncertainty, and doubt
- fears about terrorists, pornographers, pedophiles, money
launderers
13.8.3. corporate leaders like Grove are being enlisted to make the
Clipper case
13.8.4. Donn Parker is spreading panic about "anarchy" (similar to my
own CA)
13.8.5. "What can be done in the face of moves to require national ID
cards, use official public key registries, adhere to key
escrow laws, etc?"
- This is the most important question we face.
- Short of leaving the country (but for where?) or living a
subsistence-level lifestyle below the radar screens of the
surveillance state, what can be done?
+ Some possibilities, not necessarily good ones:
+ civil disobedience
- mutilation of cards, "accidental erasure," etc.
- forgeries of cards...probably not feasible (we understand
about digital sigs)
- creation of large black markets...still doesn't cover
everything, such as water, electricity, driver's
licenses, etc....just too many things for a black market
to handle
- lobby against these moves...but it appears the momentum
is too strong in the other direction
13.9. "What Could Make Crypto Use more Common?"
13.9.1. transparent use, like the fax machine, is the key
13.9.2. easier token-based key and/or physical metrics for security
- thumbprint readers
- tokens attached to employee badges
- rings, watches, etc. that carry most of key (with several
bits remembered, and a strict "three strikes and you're
out" system)
13.9.3. major security scares, or fears over "back doors" by the
government, may accelerate the conversion
- all it may take are a couple of very large scandals
13.9.4. insurance companies may demand encryption, for several
reasons
- to protect against theft, loss, etc.
- to provide better control against viruses and other
modifications which expose the companies they ensure to
liability suits
- same argument cited by safe makers: when insurance
companies demanded better safes, that's when customers
bought them (and not before)
13.9.5. Networks will get more complex and will make conventional
security systems unacceptable
- "Fortress" product of Los Altos Technologies
- too many ways for others to see passwords being given to a
remote host, e.g., with wireless LANs (which will
necessitate ZKIPS)
- ZKIPS especially in networks, where the chances of seeing a
password being transmitted are much greater (an obvious
point that is not much discussed)
- the whole explosion in bandwidth
13.9.6. The revelations of surveillance and monitoring of citizens
and corporations will serve to increase the use of
encryption, at first by people with something to hide, and
then by others. Cypherpunks are already helping by spreading
the word of these situations.
- a snowballing effect
- and various government agencies will themselves use
encryption to protect their files and their privacy
13.9.7. for those in sensitive positions, the availability of new
bugging methods will accelerate the conversion to secure
systems based on encrypted telecommunications and the
avoidance of voice-based systems
13.9.8. ordinary citizens are being threatened because of what they
say on networks, causing them to adopt pseudonyms
- lawsuits, ordinary threats, concerns about how their
employers will react (many employers may adopt rules
limiting the speech of their employees, largely because of
concerns they'll get sued)
+ and some database providers are providing cross-indexed
lists of who has posted to what boards-this is freely
available information, but it is not expected by people
that their postings will live forever
- some may see this as extortion
- but any proposed laws are unlikely to succeed
- so, as usual, the solution is for people to protect
themselves via technological means
13.9.9. "agents" that are able to retransmit material will make
certain kinds of anonymous systems much easier to use
13.10. Deals, the EFF, and Digital Telephony Bill
13.10.1. The backroom deals in Washington are flying...apparently the
Administration got burned by the Clipper fiasco (which they
could partly write-off as being a leftover from the Bush era)
and is now trying to "work the issues" behind the scenes
before unveiling new and wide-reaching programs. (Though at
this writing, the Health Bill is looking mighty amateurish
and seems ulikely to pass.)
13.10.2. We are not hearing about these "deals" in a timely way. I
first heard that a brand new, and "in the bag," deal was
cooking when I was talking to a noted journalist. He told me
that a new deal, cut between Congress, the telecom industry,
and the EFF-type lobbying groups, was already a done deal and
would be unveiled so. Sure enough, the New and Improved
Digital Telephony II Bill appears a few weeks later and is
said by EFF representatives to be unstoppable. [comments by
S. McLandisht and others, comp.org.eff.talk, 1994-08]
13.10.3. Well, excuse me for reminding everyone that this country is
allegedly still a democracy. I know politics is done behinde
closed doors, as I'm no naif, but deal-cutting like this
deserves to be exposed and derided.
13.10.4. I've announced that I won't be renewing my EFF membership. I
don't expect them to fight all battles, to win all wars, but
I sure as hell won't help *pay* for their backrooms deals
with the telcos.
13.10.5. This may me in trouble with my remaining friends at the EFF,
but it's as if a lobbying groups in Germany saw the
handwriting on the wall about the Final Solution, deemed it
essentially unstoppable, and so sent their leaders to
Berchtesgaden/Camp David to make sure that the death of the
Jews was made as painless as possible. A kind of joint
Administration/Telco/SS/IG Farben "compromise." While I don't
equate Mitch, Jerry, Mike, Stanton, and others with Hitler's
minions, I certainly do think the inside-the-Beltway
dealmaking is truly disgusting.
13.10.6. Our freedoms are being sold out.
13.11. Loose ends
13.11.1. Deals, deals, deals!
- pressures by Administration...software key escrow, digital
telephony, cable regulation
+ and suppliers need government support on legislation,
benefits, spectrum allocation, etc
- reports that Microsoft is lobbying intensively to gain
control of big chunks of spectrum...could fit with cable
set-top box negotiations, Teledesic, SKE, etc.
- EFF even participates in some of these deals. Being "inside
the Beltway" has this kind of effect, where one is either a
"player" or a "non-player." (This is my interpretation of
how power corrupts all groups that enter the Beltway.)
Shmoozing and a desire to help.
13.11.2. using crypto to bypass laws on contacts and trade with other
countries
- one day it's illegal to have contact with China, the next
day it's encouraged
+ one day it's legal to have contact with Haiti, the next day
there's an embargo (and in the case of Haiti, the economic
effects fall on on the poor--the tens of thousands fleeing
are not fleeing the rulers, but the poverty made worse by
the boycott
- (The military rulers are just the usual thugs, but
they're not "our" thugs, for reasons of history. Aristide
would almost certainly be as bad, being a Marxist priest.
Thus, I consider the breakin of the embargo to be a
morally good thing to do.
- who's to say why Haiti is suddenly to be shunned? By force
of law, no less!
13.11.3. Sun Tzu's "Art of War" has useful tips (more useful than "The
Prince")
- work with lowliest
- sabotage good name of enemy
- spread money around
- I think the events of the past year, including...
13.11.4. The flakiness of current systems...
- The current crypto infrastructure is fairly flaky, though
the distributed web-of-trust model is better than some
centralized system, of coure. What I mean is that many
aspects are slow, creaky, and conducive to errors.
- In the area of digital cash, what we have now is not even
as advanced as was seen with real money in Sumerian times!
(And I wouldn't trust the e-mail "message in a bottle"
approach for any nontrivial financial transactions.)
- Something's got to change. The NII/Superhighway/Infobahn
people have plans, but their plans are not likely to mesh
well with ours. A challenge for us to consider.
13.11.5. "Are there dangers in being too paranoid?"
+ As Eric Hughes put it, "paranoia is cryptography's
occupational hazard."
- "The effect of paranoia is self-delusion of the following
form--that one's possible explanations are skewed toward
malicious attacks, by individuals, that one has the
technical knowledge to anticipate. This skewing creates
an inefficient allocation of mental energy, it tends
toward the personal, downplaying the possibility of
technical error, and it begins to close off examination
of technicalities not fully understood.
"Those who resist paranoia will become better at
cryptography than those who do not, all other things
being equal. Cryptography is about epistemology, that
is, assurances of truth, and only secondarily about
ontology, that is, what actually is true. The goal of
cryptography is to create an accurate confidence that a
system is private and secure. In order to create that
confidence, the system must actually be secure, but
security is not sufficient. There must be confidence
thatthe way by which this security becomes to be believed
is robust and immune to delusion.
"Paranoia creates delusion. As a direct and fundamental
result, it makes one worse at cryptography. At the
outside best, it makes one slower, as the misallocation
of attention leads one down false trails. Who has the
excess brainpower for that waste? Certainly not I. At
the worst, paranoia makes one completely ineffective, not
only in technical means but even more so in the social
context in which cryptography is necessarily relevant."
[Eric Hughes, 1994-05-14]
+ King Alfred Plan, blacks
- plans to round up 20 million blacks
- RFK, links to LAPD, Western Goals, Birch, KKK
- RFA #9, 23, 38
+ organized crime situation, perhaps intelligence
community
- damaging to blacks, psychological
13.11.6. The immorality of U.S. boycotts and sanctions
- as with Haiti, where a standard and comparatively benign
and harmless military dictatorship is being opposed, we are
using force to interfere with trade, food shipments,
financial dealings, etc.
- invasion of countries that have not attacked other
countries...a major new escalation of U.S. militarism
- crypto will facillitate means of underming imperialism
13.11.7. The "reasonableness" trap
- making a reasonable thing into a mandatory thing
- this applies to what Cypherpunks should ever be prepared to
support
+ An example: A restaurant offers to replace dropped items
(dropped on the floor, literally) for free...a reasonable
thing to offer customers (something I see frequently). So
why not make it the law? Because then the reasonable
discretion of the restaurant owner would be lost, and some
customers could "game against" (exploit the letter of the
law) the system. Even threaten lawsuits.
- (And libertarians know that "my house, my rules" applies
to restaurants and other businesses, absent a contract
spelling exceptions out.)
- A more serious example is when restaurants (again) find it
"reasonable" to hire various sorts of qualified people.
What may be "reasonable" is one thing, but too often the
government decides to _formalize_ this and takes away the
right to choose. (In my opinion, no person or group has any
"right" to a job unless the employer freely offers it. Yes,
this could included discrimination against various groups.
Yes, we may dislike this. But the freedom to choose is a
much more basic right than achieving some ideal of equality
is.)
- And when "reasonableness" is enforced by law, the game-
playing increases. In effect, some discretion is needed to
reject claims that are based on gaming. Markets naturally
work this way, as no "basic rights" or contracts are being
violated.
- Fortunately, strong crypto makes this nonsense impossible.
Perforce, people will engage in contracts only voluntarily.
13.11.8. "How do we get agreement on protocols?"
- Give this idea up immediately! Agreement to behave in
certain ways is almost never possible.
- Is this an indictment of anarchy?
- No, because the way agreement is sort of reached is through
standards or examplars that people can get behind. Thus, we
don't get "consensus" in advance on the taste of Coca
Cola...somebody offers Coke for sale and then the rest is
history.
- PGP is a more relevant example. The examplar is on a "take
it or leave it" basis, with minor improvements made by
others, but within the basic format.
14. Other Advanced Crypto Applications
14.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
14.2. SUMMARY: Other Advanced Crypto Applications
14.2.1. Main Points
14.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
14.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
- see the various "Crypto" Proceedings for various papers on
topics that may come to be important
14.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
14.3. Digital Timestamping
14.3.1. digital timestamping
- The canonical reference for digital timestamping is the
work of Stu Haber and Scott Stornetta, of Bellcore. Papers
presented at various Crypto conferences. Their work
involves having the user compute a hash of the document he
wishes to be stamped and sending the hash to them, where
they merge this hash with other hashes (and all previous
hashes, via a tree system) and then they *publish* the
resultant hash in a very public and hard-to-alter forum,
such as in an ad in the Sunday "New York Times."
In their parlance, such an ad is a "widely witnessed
event," and attempts to alter all or even many copies of
the newspaper would be very difficult and expensive. (In a
sense, this WWE is similar to the "beacon" term Eric Hughes
used.)
Haber and Stornetta plan some sort of commercial operation
to do this.
This service has not yet been tested in court, so far as I
know. The MIT server is an experiment, and is probably
useful for experimenting. But it is undoubtedly even less
legally significant, of course.
14.3.2. my summary
14.4. Voting
14.4.1. fraud, is-a-person, forging identies, increased "number"
trends
14.4.2. costs also high
14.4.3. Chaum
14.4.4. voting isomorphic to digital money
- where account transfers are the thing being voted on, and
the "eligible voters" are oneself...unless this sort of
thing is outlawed, which would create other problems, then
this makes a form of anonymous transfer possible (more or
less)
14.5. Timed-Release Crypto
14.5.1. "Can anything like a "cryptographic time capsule" be built?"
- This would be useful for sealing diaries and records in
such a way that no legal bodies could gain access, that
even the creator/encryptor would be unable to decrypt the
records. Call it "time escrow." Ironically, a much more
correct use of the term "escrow" than we saw with the
government's various "key escrow" schemes.
- Making records undecryptable is easy: just use a one-way
function and the records are unreachable forever. The trick
is to have a way to get them back at some future time.
+ Approaches:
+ Legal Repository. A lawyer or set of lawyers has the key
or keys and is instructed to release them at some future
time. (The key-holding agents need not be lawyers, of
course, though that is the way things are now done.
- The legal system is a time-honored way of protecting
secrets of various kinds, and any system based on
cryptography needs to compete strongly with this simple
to use, well-established system.
- If the lawyer's identity is known, he can be
subpoenaed. Depends on jurisdictional issues, future
political climate, etc.
- But identity-hiding protocols can be used, so that the
lawyer cannot be reached. All that is know, for
example, is that "somewhere out there" is an agent who
is holding the key(s). Reputation-based systems should
work well here: the agent gains little and loses a lot
by releasing a key early, hence has no economic
motivation to do so. (Picture also a lot of "pinging"
going to "rate" the various ti (Nobody), libtech-l@netcom.com,
1994-06-08]
+ why I'm not sanguine about Feds
- killing Randy Weaver's wife and son from a distance,
after trumped-up weapons charges
- burning alive the Koresh compound, on trumped-up charges
of Satanism, child abuse, and wife-insulting
- seizures of boats, cars, etc., on "suspicion" of
involvement with drugs
17.12. "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades"
17.12.1. Despite the occasionally gloomy predictions, things look
pretty good.No guarantees, of course, but trends that are
favorable. No reason for us to rest, though.
17.12.2. Duncan Frissell puts it this way:
- "Trade is way up. Wealth is way up. International travel
is way up. Migration is way up. Resource prices are the
lowest in human history. Communications costs are way
down. Electronics costs are way down. We are in a zero or
negative inflation environment. The quantity and quality
of goods and services offered on the markets is at an all-
time high. The percentage of the world's countries headed
by dictators is the lowest it's ever been.
"What all this means is that political philosophies that
depend on force of arms to push people into line, will
increasingly fail to work. Rich people with choices will,
when coerced, tend to change their investments and
business affairs into a friendlier form or to move to a
friendlier environment. Choice is real. If choices
exist, they will be made. An ever higher proportion of the
world's people will be "rich" in wealth and choice as the
years go on.
"Only a political philosophy that depends on the uncoerced
cooperation of very different people has a chance of
functioning in the future." [Duncan Frissell, 1994-09-09]
17.13. "Will cryptography really bring on the Millenium?"
17.13.1. Yes. And cats will move in with dogs, Snapple will rain from
the sky, and P will be shown unequal to NP.
17.13.2. Seriously, the implications of strong privacy, of
cyberspatial economies, and of borders becoming transparent
are enormous. The way governments do business is already
changing, and this will change things even more dramatically.
The precise form may be unpredictable, but certain end states
are fairly easy to predict in broad brush strokes.
17.13.3. "How do we know the implications of crypto are what I've
claimed?"
- We can't know the future.
- Printing, railroads, electrification
17.13.4. "When will it all happen? When will strong crypto really
begin to have a major effect on the economy?"
+ Stages:
- The Prehistoric Era. Prior to 1975. NSA and other
intelligence agencies controlled most crypto work.
Cryptography seen as a hobby. DES just starting to be
deployed by banks and financial institutions.
- The Research Era. 1975-1992. Intense interest in public
key discovery, in various protocols. Start of several
"Crypto" conferences. Work on digital money, DC-Nets,
timestamping, etc.
- The Activism Era. 1992--?? (probably 1998). PGP 2.0
released. Cypherpunks formed. Clipper announced--meets
firestorm of protest. EFF, CPSR, EPIC, other groups.
"Wired" starts publication. Digital Telelphony, other
bills. Several attempts to start crypto businesses are
made...most founder.
- The Transition Era. After about 1999. Businesses start.
Digital cash needed for Net transactions. Networks and
computers fast enough to allow more robust protocols. Tax
havens flourish. "New Underworld Order" (credit to Claire
Sterling) flourishes.
- It is premature to expect that the current environment--
technological and regulatory--will be beneficial to the
type of strong crypto we favor. Too many pieces are
missing. Several more advances are needed. A few more
failures are also needed (gulp!) to show better how not to
proceed.
17.13.5. "But will crypto anarchy actually happen?"
- To a growing extent, it already is happening. Look at the
so-called illegal markets, the flows of drug money around
the world, the transfer of billions of dollars a day on
mere "chop marks," and the thriving trade in banned items.
- "Grey and black capitalism is already a major component of
international cash flows....Once adequate user friendly
software is available, the internet will accellerate this
already existing trend....Crypto anarchy is merely the
application of modern tools to assist covert capitalism."
[James Donald, 1994-08-29]
- There are arguments that a Great Crackdown is coming, that
governments will shut down illegal markets, will stop
strong crypto, will force underground economies
aboveground. This is doubtful--it's been tried for the past
several decades (or more). Prohibition merely made crime
more organized; ditto for the War on (Some) Drugs.
17.13.6. "Has the point of no return been passed on strong crypto?"
- Actually, I think that in the U.S. at least, the point was
passed decades ago, possibly a century or more ago, and
that any hope of controlling strong crypto and private
communication evaporated long ago. Abuses by the FBI in
wiretapping Americans, and reports of NSA monitoring of
domestic communications notwithstanding, it is
essentially.....
17.14. Loose Ends
17.14.1. firewalls, virtual perimeters, swIPe-type encrypted tunnels,
an end to break-ins,
17.14.2. "What kind of encryption will be used with ATM?"
- (ATM = Asynchronous Transfer Mode, not Automated Teller
Machine)
- some reports that NSA is developing standards for ATM
17.14.3. Shapes of things to come, maybe....(laws of other countries)
+ India has a fee schedule for BBS operators, e.g., they have
to pay $50,000 a year to operate a bulletin board! (This
sounds like the urban legend about the FCC planning a modem
tax, but maybe it's true.)
- "The Forum for Rights to Electronic Expression (FREE) has
been formed in India as a body dedicated to extending
fundamental rights to the electronic domain....FREE owes
its creation to an attack on Indian datacom by the Indian
government, in the form of exorbitant licence fees (a
minimum Rs. 1.5 million = US$50,000 each year for a BBS,
much higher for e-mail)." [amehta@doe.ernet.in (Dr. Arun
Mehta), forwarded by Phil Agre, comp.org.cpsr.talk, 1994-
08-31]
- for more info: ftp.eff.org
/pub/EFF/Policy/World/India/FREE
17.14.4. Cyberspace will need better protection
- to ensure spoofing and counterfeiting is reduced (recall
Habitat's problems with people figuring out the loopholes)
18. Loose Ends and Miscellaneous Topics
18.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
18.2. SUMMARY: Loose Ends and Miscellaneous Topics
18.2.1. Main Points
18.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
18.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
18.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
- I hate to have a section like this, but there are just some
things that don't seem to fit neatly elsewhere
- hopefully you found this topics with your editor search
tools
18.3. Quantum Cryptography
18.3.1. "What is quantum cryptography?"
+ Two main flavors:
+ secure channels exploiting the Uncertainty Principle
+ Brassard, Bennett, fiber optic lines, short distances,
detects tapping
+ Quantum cryptography
- bits can be exchanged-albeit at fairly low
efficiencies-over a channel
- with detection of taps, via the change of
polarizations
+ Stephen Wiesner wrote a 1970 paper, half a decade
before the P-K work, which outlined this-not
published until much later
- speculate that the NSA knew about this and
quashed the publication
+ factoring of numbers using a strange Many World
interpretation
- Shor
+ hearkens to my spoof about Russians
- I never knew I hit so close to the mark!
18.3.2. "What about _quantum cryptography_?"
+ Exploiting Uncertainty Principle to make untappable
communication lines. (More precisely, tapped lines give
indication of having been tapped.)
- Bennett and Brassard
- faint flashes of light in a fiber optic cable used;
polarized photons
- Alice and Bob go through a protocol that involves them
picking Linear or Circular Polarization (LP or CP); can't
be simultaneously measured...
-
- Not likely to be important for a long time.
- An additional tool, or crypto primitive building block.
18.4. Chaotic Cryptography
18.4.1. the oscillator scheme was broken at Crypto '94
18.5. Neural Nets and AI in Crypto
18.5.1. "What about neural nets and AI in crypto?"
- Of limited use, at least in breaking modern ciphers. Marvin
Minsky once said that if you don't understand how to solve
a problem, adding randomness usually doesn't help.
- The shape of the solution space is very spiky, very poorly-
suited to hill-climbing or divide-and-conquer methods
+ Neural nets are not likely to do well with modern ciphers
(e.g., RSA, IDEA, DES, etc.), mainly because of the shape
of the solution space. Instead of the "rolling hills and
valleys" that neural nets (and related methods, such as
genetic algorithms, simulated annealing, etc.) do well in,
the solution space for modern ciphers offers very little in
the way of "learning" opportunities: you either have the
solution (the key), or you don't.
Think of a needle standing up from a flat plain...a NN or
any other hill-climber could wander for years and never
find it. Well-designed modern ciphers like RSA and IDEA
appear to admit no analysis based on "nonrandom"
properties. If anybody has found shortcuts to factoring the
modulus in RSA, for example, they haven't let on.
I suspect there are uses in peripheral aspects, such as
guessing passwords (when people have not picked high-
entropy passwords, but have instead used familiar names).
Or in traffic analysis. Those who munch on lots of traffic
may well be using neural nets, custom signal processing,
etc. to "prepare" the captured traffic for further
analysis. A safe bet, in fact.
But the move in modern cryptology is definitely away from
using anything with "structure" that can be learned. Put
another way, neural nets and such work well in structured
environments, where there's something to _learn), but not
in the high-entropy, seemingly random world of encrypted
data.
+ AI may be useful in other areas
- protocol generation
- SIGINT
18.5.2. Evolutionary or Genetic Programming
- a la Holland, Koza
- RNGs
18.6. Miscellaneous Advanced Crypto Ideas
18.6.1. "Why have provably "NP-complete" problems not found uses in
crypto?"
- One of the great Unresolved Mysteries! Or the Holy Grail,
if you will.
- The issue is why have provably hard (or NP-complete, to be
more accurate) problems not been used? (Factoring is not
known to NP-complete...experts can correct my phrasing here
if I'm misstating things.)
- It would be nice if a provably hard problem, such as the
domino tiling problem, or 3SAT, or other such things out of
Garey and Johnson's book on NP-Completeness could be used.
This would increase confidence in ciphers still further.
18.6.2. "Can cellular automata, like Conway's "Game of Life," be used
for cryptography?"
- Stephen Wolfram proposed use of cellular automata for
crytography some years back; his collection of essays on
cellular automata contains at least one such mention. Many
people suspected that 1D CAs were no stronger than linear
feedback shift registers (LFSRs), and I recally hearing a
couple of years ago that someone proved 1D CAs (and maybe
all CAs?) are equivalent to LFSRs, which have been used in
crypto for many years.
- Wolfram's book is "Theory and Applications of Cellular
Automata," 1986, World Scientific. Several papers on using
CAs for random sequence generation. P. Bardell showed
in1990 that CAs produce the outputs of LFSRs.) Wolfram also
has a paper, "Cryptography with cellular automata," in
Proc. CRYPTO 85.
- Intuitively, the idea of a CA looks attractive for "one-way
functions," for the reasons mentioned. But what's the
"trapdoor" that gives the key holder a shortcut to reverse
the process? (Public key crypto needs a trapdoor 1-way
funtion that is easy to reverse if one has the right
information).
18.7. Viruses and Crypto
18.7.1. "What's the connection between Cypherpunks and viruses?"
- Like, dewd, it's so kool.
- Beavis 'n Butthead use PGP (actually, Eric Hughes proposed
at one point that we suggest a crypto tie-in to the
writers)
- There's only peripheral connection.
- Viruses can be spread with anonymous remailers, but digital
signatures can be used to safeguard software. Signed
software, no mods allowed.
18.7.2. "What about the "encryption viruses," like KOH?"
- (A little far afield, but the issue does come up.)
- Somebody asked about this on sci.crypt and Vesselin
Bontchev said: "This topic has been debated to death in
alt.security.pgp, when somebody posted KOH, without even a
warning that it is a virus.....Both viruses indeed use the
IDEA cipher - the same that is used both by SecureDevice
and SecureDrive. However, the viruses pose some significant
threats to the integrity of your data, exactly because of
their viral replication means.....Also, if you aquire it by
viral means, you do not get the doumentation and one
utility, both of which are essential for the proper usage
of the product - thus proving one more time that its viral
capabilities are unnecessary and harmful. Also, the virus
does not come in source, which means that it could have
some hidden backdoors or simply security flaws, and you
have no way to check this or to fix them. At last, in some
cases the virus could destroy valuable information during
its replication process."
- "In short - don't use them. You will gain nothing over
using
stand-alone encryption programs, and you'll expose your
data's
integrity to significant risks. Those viruses are
completely useless
and even harmful; they have been created with the only
reason to
condone the illicit activities of the virus writers, by
claiming that
computer viruses can be "useful"." [Vesselin Bontchev,
sci.crypt, 1994-08-31]
18.7.3. "What about viruses? Are there any ties to crypto and
Cypherpunks themes?"
- No direct link that any of us see clearly. Occasionally a
virus fan sees the "punks" name and thinks we're involved
in writing viruses. (Actually, a few folks on the list have
virus expertise.)
- Crypto may protect against viruses, by having code signed.
And the reliance on self-responsibility and self-protection
is in contrast to the legal approach, which tends not to
work too well for virus protection (by the covert nature of
many viruses).
18.7.4. "What interests do Cypherpunks have in viruses?"
- Not much, though the topic comes up periodically.
- Some overlap in the communities involved.
- And there are some virus methods which use forms of
encryption.
- Also, digital signatures on code can be used to ensure that
code has not been modified since being released by the
original author.
18.8. Making Money in Crypto
18.8.1. "How can I make money in crypto?"
- crypto experts are hired by software companies
+ start up companies
- a tough road
- not clear that even Phil Zimmermann has made money
- and even RSADSI is facing a challenge (hasn't gone
public, not a cash cow, etc.)
- There may be an explosive growth--the phase change I often
talk about--and many opportunities will emerge. But, having
said this, I still don't see obvious opportunities right
now. And starting a company based on hope and ideology,
rather than supplying a real market or pushing real
technology (market pull vs. technology push argument) seem
misguided.
18.9. The Net
18.9.1. Limitations of the current net
- interoperability
+ subsidized, not pay as you go
- makes spamming inevitable, doesn't allocate resources to
those who want them the most
- this will require digicash in a better form than most
users now have access to
- sysadmins get worried
- encryption sometimes banned
- common carrier status not clear
- general cruftiness of Net ("imminent death of Usenet
predicted")
18.10. Duress Switches, Dead Man Switches
18.10.1. "What about "duress" codes for additional security?"
- Where a harmless decrytion can be done, or an alarm sent.
+ Examples
- sending alarm, like an under the counter alarm button
- decrypting a bank card number for a lesser-value account
- two sets of books (not strictly a "duress" code, unless
you view the IRS as causing duress)
- alarms to associates, as in cells
- " Having a separate authentication mechanism that is used
under duress is a very good idea that some existing systems
already
employ.... From a systems point of view, it is hard to
figure out exactly how the system should respond when it
recognizes a duress authentication....The safe inside the
ATM machines used by BayBanks (Boston Mass) can be opened
with two combinations. One combination sends an alarm to
the bank via a separate phone line (not the one used to
perform the ATM transaction). The alarm phone line is also
connected to a conventional panic switch." [Bob Baldwin,
Duress Passwords/PINs/Combinations, 1993-11-18]
18.10.2. Duress switches, dead man switches, etc.
+ "Digital flash paper," can be triggered to erase files,
etc.
- (BATF and DEA raiders may have sophisticated means of
disabling computers)
+ Duress codes..."erase my files," ways of not giving esrowed
information unless proper code is given, etc.
+ "Don't release if I am under indictment"
- interesting issues about secret indictments, about
publicity of such cases, access to court records by
offshore computers, etc.
18.10.3. Personal security for disks, dead man switches
+ I have heard that some BBS operators install dead man
switches near the doors to rooms containing their
systems...entering the room without flipping the switch
causes some action to be taken
- erasing a disk, dumping a RAM disk (a dangerous way to
store data, given power failures, soft errors, restarts,
etc.)
18.11. Can Encryption be Detected?
18.11.1. "Can messages be scanned and checked for encryption?"
- If the encryption produces _markers_ or other indications,
then of course. "BEGIN PGP" is a pretty clear beacon. (Such
markers assists in decryption by the recipient, but are not
essential. "Stealth" versions of PGP and other encryption
programs--such as S-Tools for DOS--don't have such
markers.)
- If the encryption produces "random-looking" stuff, then
entropy measures and other statistical tests may or may not
be able detect such messages reliably. Depends on what non-
encrypted messages look like, and how the algorithm works.
+ Steganography:
- making messages look like normal ones
- tucking th ebits in with other random-like bits, such as
in the low-order bits of images or sound files
- The practical concern depends on one's local political
environment. In many countries, mere suspicion of using
crypto could put one in real danger.
18.12. Personal Digital Assistants, Newtons, etc.
18.12.1. "Are there cryptographic uses for things like Newtons?"
- Probably. Eventually. Digital wallets, portable key
holders, local agents for access, etc.
+ Meanwhile, a few encryption programs exist. Here's one:
- -> nCrypt, the strong cryptography application for
Newton:
-> ftp.sumex-aim.stanford.edu/info-mac/nwt/utils/n-crypt-
lite.hqx
18.13. Physical Security
18.13.1. "Can fiber optical cables be tapped?"
+ Yes. Light can escape from the fiber in bends, and "near-
field" tapping is theoretically possible, at least under
lab conditions. Active measures for puncturing cable
shields and tapping fibers are also possible.
- "The Fed's want a cost effective F/O tap. My company was
approached to develop such a system, can be done but not
cheap like copper wire tapping." [
domonkos@access.digex.net (andy domonkos),
comp.org.eff.talk, 1994-06-29]
- Los Alamos technology? 1990?
18.14. Attacking Governments
18.14.1. "termites" (rumors, psy-ops) that can undermine governments,
followed by "torpedoes" (direct attack)
18.14.2. WASTE (War Against Strong, Tamper-resistant Encryption).
18.15. Cypherpunks List Issues
18.15.1. too much noise on the list?
- "Of all the lists I'm subscribed to, this is the only one
that I read
*every* article in. Even the "noise" articles. Humans
being what
they are, the noise is needed to help decide the direction
of the
group. Besides, for those of us who are just starting on
our journey
through crypto-underworld need the noise to help
familiarize
ourselves with how crypto works. I've learned more from
the informal
ramblings than I've gathered out of all the formal and/or
mathematical
postings to date." [Patrick E. Hykkonen, 5-25-93]
18.16. Tamper-Resistant Modules
18.16.1. TRMs--claims that "Picbuster" processor can be locally
overwritten with focussed or directed UV (OTP)
18.16.2. tamper-resistant modules have some downsides as well
- cash registers for ensuring compliance with all relevant
sales tax, value-added tax (VAT), and rationing rules; a
tamper-resistant module cash register could be the
enforcement mechanism for a national security state.
- "observers"
18.17. Deeper Connections
18.17.1. In several places I've referred to "deep connections" between
things like crypto, money, game theory, evolutionary
ecologies, human motivations, and the nature of law. By this
I mean that there are deeper, unifying principles. Principles
involving locality, identity, and disclosure of knowledge. A
good example: the deep fairness of "cut-and-choose" protocols-
-I've seen mention of this in game theory tesxts, but not
much discussion of other, similar protocols.
18.17.2. For example, below the level of number theory and algorithms
in cryptology lies a level dealing with "identity," "proof,"
"collusion," and other such core concepts, concepts that can
almost be dealt with independent of the acual algorithms
(though the concrete realization of public key methods took
this out of the abstract realm of philosophy and made it
important to analyze). And these abstract concepts are linked
to other fields, such as economics, human psychology, law,
and evolutionary game theory (the study of evolved strategies
in multi-agent systems, e.g., human beings interacting and
trading with each other).
18.17.3. I believe there are important questions about why things work
the way they do at this level. To be concrete, why do threats
of physical coercion create market distortions and what
effects does this have? Or, what is the nature of emergent
behavior in reputation-based systems? (The combinatiion of
crypto and economics is a fertile area, barely touched upon
by the academic cryptology community.) Why is locality is
important, and what does this mean for digital cash? Why does
regulation often produce _more_ crime?
18.17.4. Crypto and the related ideas of reputation, identity, and
webs of trust has introduced a new angle into economic
matters. I suspect there are a couple of Nobel Prizes in
Economics for those who integrate these important concepts.
18.18. Loose End Loose Ends
18.18.1. What the core issues are...a tough thing to analyze
- untraceablility as a basic construct has major implications
+ can often ask what the implications would be if, say:
- invisibility existed
- untraceability existed
- By "tough to analyze" I mean that things are often
coflated, mixed together. Is it the "reputations" that
matter, or the "anonymity"? The "untraceability" or the
"digital money"?
18.18.2. Price signalling in posts...for further information
+ When an article is posted, and there is more complete
information available elsewhere by ftp, gopher, mosaic,
etc., then how is this to to be signalled without actually
advertising prominently?
- why not a code, like the "Geek code" so many people put
in their sigs? The code could be parsed by a reader and
used to automatically fetch the information, pay for it,
etc. (Agents that can be built in to newsreaders.)
18.18.3. "What should Cypherpunks support for "cable" or "set-top box"
standards?
- Caveats: My opinions, offered only to help frame the
debate. And many of us reject the idea of government-
mandated "standards," so my phrasing here is not meant to
imply support of such standards.
+ Major alternatives:
+ Set-top box, with t.v. as core of access to "information
superhighway."
+ Problems:
- limited number of channels, even if "500 channels"
- makes t.v. the focus, loses some other capabilities
- few consumers will have television sets with the
resolution capabilities that even current computer
monitors have (there are reasons for this: size of
monitors (related to viewing distance), NTSC
constraints, age of televisions, etc.)
+ Switched-packet cable, as in ATM or even SONET
(Synchronous Optical Network) access
+ Advantages:
- Television is just one more switched-packet
transmission, not using up the bandwidth
+ Radical Proposal: Complete deregulation
+ let cable suppliers--especially of optical fibers,
which are small and unobtrusive--lay fibers to any home
they can negotiate access to
- e.g., by piggybacking on telephone lines, electrical
cables, etc. (to remove the objection about unsightly
new poles or cables being strung...should not be an
issue with fiber optics)
- let the market decide...let customers decide
+ In my view, government standards are a terrible idea here.
Sure, NTSC was an effective standard, but it likely would
have emerged without government involvement. Ditto for
Ethernet and a zillion other standards. No need for
government involvement.
- Of course, when industry groups meet to discuss
standards, one hopes that antitrust laws will not be
invoked.
18.18.4. minor point: the importance of "But does it scale?" is often
exaggerated
- in many cases, it's much more important to simply get
something deployed than it is to worry in advance about how
it will break if too many people use it (e.g., MacDonald's
worrying in 1955 about scalabilty of their business).
- Remailer networks, for example, may not scale especially
well in their current form...but who cares? Getting them
used will allow further refinement.
19. Appendices
19.1. copyright
THE CYPHERNOMICON: Cypherpunks FAQ and More, Version 0.666,
1994-09-10, Copyright Timothy C. May. All rights reserved.
See the detailed disclaimer. Use short sections under "fair
use" provisions, with appropriate credit, but don't put your
name on my words.
19.2. SUMMARY: Appendices
19.2.1. Main Points
19.2.2. Connections to Other Sections
19.2.3. Where to Find Additional Information
19.2.4. Miscellaneous Comments
- This is still under construction
- Disorganized!!!
- URLs need to be checked
19.3. Appendix -- Sites, Addresses, URL/Web Sites, Etc.
19.3.1. be sure to get soda address straight!!! [use clones]
- I received mine from soda.csua.berkeley.edu
the menus are: /pub/cypherpunks/pgp/pgp26
19.3.2. How to use this section
+ comment on URLs being only a snapshot...
- use reply to Sherry Mayo here
19.3.3. General Crypto and Cypherpunks Sites
- sci.crypt archive: anon ftp to ftp.wimsey.bc.ca:/pub/crypto
[Mark Henderson]
+ ftp://soda.berkeley.edu/pub/cypherpunks/Home.html [has
probably been changed to soda.csua.edu site]
- ftp://ftp.u.washington.edu/public/phantom/cpunk/README.ht
ml
- ftp://furmint.nectar.cs.cmu.edu/security/cypheressay/what-
is-cypherpunk.html [Vincent Cate, 1994-07-03]
- ftp://wiretap.spies.com/Gov/World/usa.con
- http://www.quadralay.com/www/Crypt/Crypt.html
- http://cs.indiana.edu/ripem/dir.html
- misc. article on crypto:
http://www.quadralay.com/www/Crypt/Crypt.html
- ftp.wimsey.bc.ca:/pub/crypto has REDOC III, Loki91, SHS and
HAVAL (Mark Henderson, markh@vanbc.wimsey.com, 4-17-94,
sci.crypt>
+ Some misc. ftp sites to check:
- soda.berkeley.edu
- ftp.informatik.uni-hamburg.de
- ripem.msu.edu
- garbo.uwasa.fi
- wimsey.bc.ca
- ghost.dsi.unimi.it
- http://rsa.com
- PC Expo disk package to ftp.wimsey.bc.ca [Arsen Ray
Arachelian, 1994-07-05]
+ PC Expo disk
- ftp.wimsey.bc.ca
/pub/crypto/software/dist/US_or_Canada_only_XXXXXXXX/pcxp
o/pcxpo.zip
- "The FTP site ripem.msu.edu has a bunch of crypto stuff."
[Mark Riordan, 1994-07-08]
+ URL for "Applied Cryptography"-related files
- http://www.openmarket.com/info/cryptography/applied_crypt
ography.html
19.3.4. PGP Information and Sites
+ http://www.mantis.co.uk/pgp/pgp.html
- information on where to find PGP
+ pgpinfo@mantis.co.uk
- send any mail to this site and receive a list back of PGP
sites
- PGP info: ftp.netcom.com, in /pub/gbe and in /pub/qwerty
- more PGP:
ftp:csn.org//mpj/I_will_not_export/crypto_???????/pgp
- For non-U.S. sources of PGP: send blank mail to
pgpinfo@mantis.co.uk
+ Sherry Mayo, a crypto researcher in Australia, is also
making versions available:
- "PGP2.6ui is available (I hope!) on my experimental WWW
server, aim your browser at
http://rschp2.anu.edu.au:8080/crypt.html I am new to
this WWW thing so let me know if you have any probs
downloading. Available on the server is:
PGP2.6ui source for unix machines
Executable for the PC version of PGP 2.6ui
Executable for MacPGP 2.3" [Sherry Mayo,
talk.politics.crypto, 1994-09-06]
19.3.5. Key Servers
+ pgp-public-keys@demon.co.uk
- HELP in the subject line for more information about how
to use
- pgp-public-keys@jpunix.com
+ pgp-public-keys@pgp.iastate.edu
- ``help'' as the subject, to get a list of keyservers
[Michael Graff , alt.security.pgp,
1994-07-04]
19.3.6. Remailer Sites
- To show active remailers: finger remailer@soda.berkeley.edu
19.3.7. Mail-to-Usenet gateways:
+ group.name@paris.ics.uci.edu
- group.name@cs.dal.ca
- group.name@ug.cs.dal.ca
-
19.3.8. Government Information
+ California Legislative Information
- "You are invited to browse the new edition of my list of
Internet and direct dial sources of California government
information at URL:
www.cpsr.org/cpsr/states/california/cal_gov_info_FAQ.html
" [Chris Mays, comp.org.cpsr.talk, 1994-07-01]
+ NSA Information
- Can get on NSA/NCSC/NIST mailing list by sending to:
- csrc.nist.gov:/pub/nistpubs
19.3.9. Clipper Info
+ http://www.mantis.co.uk/~mathew/
- some good Clipper articles and testimony
19.3.10. Other
+ ftp://furmint.nectar.cs.cmu.edu/security/README.html#taxes
- Vincent Cate
- http://www.acns.nwu.edu/surfpunk/
+ Export Laws
- "EFF Board member and Cygnus Support co-founder John
Gilmore has set up a World Wide Web page on cryptography
export issues, including information on how to apply for
export clearance, exchages with Commerce Dept. on export
licensing, legal documents on networking issues in
relation to export of technology and crypto, and more.
The URL is: http://www.cygnus.com/~gnu/export.html"
[Stanton McCandlish, mech@eff.org, 1994-04-21]
+ Large integer math libraries
- ripem.msu.edu
- ftp:csn.org//mpj
+ Phrack
- archived at ftp.netsys.com
+ Bruce Sterling's comments at CFP
+ Bruce Sterling's remarks delivered at the "Computers,
Freedom and Privacy IV"
- conference , Mar. 26 1994 in Chicago, are now online at
EFF:
- ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/Publications/Bruce_Sterling/cfp_9
4_sterling.speech
- http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/Bruce_Sterling/cfp_
94_sterling.speech
- gopher://gopher.eff.org/11/Publications/Bruce_Sterling/
cfp_94_sterling.speech
- gopher.eff.org, 1/Publications/Bruce_Sterling,
cfp_94_sterling.speech
- (source: Stanton McCandlish * mech@eff.org, 3-31-94)
19.3.11. Crypto papers
- ftp.cs.uow.edu.au
pub/papers
- (quantum, other, Siberry, etc.)
19.3.12. CPSR URL
- CPSR URL: http://www.cpsr.org/home
19.4. Appendix -- Glossary
19.4.1. **Comments**
- Release Note: I regret that I haven't had time to add many
new entries here. There are a lot of specialized terms, and
I probably could have doubled the number of entries here.
- Much more work is needed here. In fact, I debated at one
point making the FAQ instead into a kind of "Encycopedia
Cypherpunkia," with a mix of short and long articles on
each of hundreds of topics. Such an organization would
suffer the disadvantages found in nearly all
lexicographically-organized works: confusion of the
concepts.
- Many of the these entries were compiled for a long handout
at the first Cypherpunks meeting, September, 1992. Errors
are obviously present. I'll try to keep correcting them
when I can.
- Schneier's "Applied Cryptography" is of course an excellent
place to browse for terms, special uses, etc.
19.4.2. agoric systems -- open, free market systems in which
voluntary transactions are central.
19.4.3. Alice and Bob -- crypographic protocols are often made
clearer by considering parties A and B, or Alice and Bob,
performing some protocol. Eve the eavesdropper, Paul the
prover, and Vic the verifier are other common stand-in names.
19.4.4. ANDOS -- all or nothing disclosure of secrets.
19.4.5. anonymous credential -- a credential which asserts some right
or privelege or fact without revealing the identity of the
holder. This is unlike CA driver's licenses.
19.4.6. assymmetric cipher -- same as public key cryptosystem.
19.4.7. authentication -- the process of verifying an identity or
credential, to ensure you are who you said you were.
19.4.8. biometric security -- a type of authentication using
fingerprints, retinal scans, palm prints, or other
physical/biological signatures of an individual.
19.4.9. bit commitment -- e.g., tossing a coin and then committing to
the value without being able to change the outcome. The blob
is a cryptographic primitive for this.
19.4.10. BlackNet -- an experimental scheme devised by T. May to
underscore the nature of anonymous information markets. "Any
and all" secrets can be offered for sale via anonymous
mailers and message pools. The experiment was leaked via
remailer to the Cypherpunks list (not by May) and thence to
several dozen Usenet groups by Detweiler. The authorities are
said to be investigating it.
19.4.11. blinding, blinded signatures -- A signature that the signer
does not remember having made. A blind signature is always a
cooperative protocol and the receiver of the signature
provides the signer with the blinding information.
19.4.12. blob -- the crypto equivalent of a locked box. A
cryptographic primitive for bit commitment, with the
properties that a blobs can represent a 0 or a 1, that others
cannot tell be looking whether it's a 0 or a 1, that the
creator of the blob can "open" the blob to reveal the
contents, and that no blob can be both a 1 and a 0. An
example of this is a flipped coin covered by a hand.
19.4.13. BnD --
19.4.14. Capstone --
19.4.15. channel -- the path over which messages are transmitted.
Channels may be secure or insecure, and may have
eavesdroppers (or enemies, or disrupters, etc.) who alter
messages, insert and delete messages, etc. Cryptography is
the means by which communications over insecure channels are
protected.
19.4.16. chosen plaintext attack -- an attack where the cryptanalyst
gets to choose the plaintext to be enciphered, e.g., when
possession of an enciphering machine or algorithm is in the
possession of the cryptanalyst.
19.4.17. cipher -- a secret form of writing, using substitution or
transposition of characters or symbols. (From Arabic "sifr,"
meaning "nothing.")
19.4.18. ciphertext -- the plaintext after it has been encrypted.
19.4.19. Clipper -- the infamous Clipper chip
19.4.20. code -- a restricted cryptosystem where words or letters of a
message are replaced by other words chosen from a codebook.
Not part of modern cryptology, but still useful.
19.4.21. coin flippping -- an important crypto primitive, or protocol,
in which the equivalent of flipping a fair coin is possible.
Implemented with blobs.
19.4.22. collusion -- wherein several participants cooperate to deduce
the identity of a sender or receiver, or to break a cipher.
Most cryptosystems are sensitive to some forms of collusion.
Much of the work on implementing DC Nets, for example,
involves ensuring that colluders cannot isolate message
senders and thereby trace origins and destinations of mail.
19.4.23. COMINT --
19.4.24. computationally secure -- where a cipher cannot be broken
with available computer resources, but in theory can be
broken with enough computer resources. Contrast with
unconditionally secure.
19.4.25. countermeasure -- something you do to thwart an attacker
19.4.26. credential -- facts or assertions about some entity. For
example, credit ratings, passports, reputations, tax status,
insurance records, etc. Under the current system, these
credentials are increasingly being cross-linked. Blind
signatures may be used to create anonymous credentials.
19.4.27. credential clearinghouse -- banks, credit agencies,
insurance companies, police departments, etc., that correlate
records and decide the status of records.
19.4.28. cryptanalysis -- methods for attacking and breaking ciphers
and related cryptographic systems. Ciphers may be broken,
traffic may be analyzed, and passwords may be cracked.
Computers are of course essential.
19.4.29. crypto anarchy -- the economic and political system after the
deployment of encryption, untraceable e-mail, digital
pseudonyms, cryptographic voting, and digital cash. A pun on
"crypto," meaning "hidden," and as when Gore Vidal called
William F. Buckley a "crypto fascist."
19.4.30. cryptography -- another name for cryptology.
19.4.31. cryptology -- the science and study of writing, sending,
receiving, and deciphering secret messages. Includes
authentication, digital signatures, the hiding of messages
(steganography), cryptanalysis, a